Bernard Jenkin: There has now been a credit crunch in the economy for 18 months. The Government have introduced a great many measures, but is there any evidence that they are working? Has not all the extra liquidity that the Government have thrown at the banks been insulating them from the need to make the changes to and the clarifications of their balance sheets? Is it not the case that they will not start lending to each other until they trust each other's balance sheets, and that the Government have not actually forced them to come clean about what is on their balance sheets?

Alistair Darling: Quite simply, in the 1990s Japan did not address the underlying problem in the banking system. It did not put in enough capital and did not deal with the assets that had gone bad, and until one addresses those problems anything else that one might do will not have the full effect that is hoped for. The Japanese are now quite clear about what went wrong in the previous decade and that is why most countries are now at pains to avoid it. The very fact that Japanese exports have gone down by nearly 50 per cent. demonstrates the extraordinary circumstances that we face. When a country such as Japan is facing such problems, there is all the more reason for us not only to take action to deal with the bank problem and to sort that out, but to take whatever action is necessary to support the economy through fiscal stimulus. We have given the Bank of England additional firepower to put more money into the economy, because that is essential if we are to protect jobs in quite extraordinary conditions across the world.

Alistair Darling: That actually was not what the Governor said. Indeed, he made the point, in his evidence to the Treasury Committee, that he thought that measures to help people get back into work were a good thing, and ought to be supported. The point that I was making—I will make it to the hon. Gentleman as well—was that if we are to help people get back into work and retrain, and if we are to help them match with jobs in the economy, it will mean spending money. The lesson from the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s is that if we do not spend the money—if we do not intervene for two or three years—an entire generation will effectively be wiped out. We must avoid that at all costs. That is why the Governor and I are totally agreed that the stimulus that I announced last November was necessary. That is why both of us agreed, at the G20 meeting of Finance Ministers and central bank governors a couple of weeks ago, that we needed to do whatever was necessary, for as long as is necessary, to support the economy.
	Of course, as I have said on many occasions, substantial sums of money are being put into the economy through the measures that I announced in the pre-Budget report, and through the additional fire power that I have given the Bank of England to get credit going in the economy. Both those things are absolutely essential, and we have to make sure that they work their way through. As the Governor himself said—and I agree—we also have to make sure that, if it is necessary, we continue to do more when it comes to measures such as putting people back into work. It is nice to have the support of the hon. Members for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) and for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper); perhaps they could have a word with their Front-Bench colleagues.

Nick Ainger: Can I agree wholeheartedly with what the Chancellor said? I was on the Treasury Committee when the Governor said the words that my right hon. Friend has just repeated. May I commend to my right hon. Friend the submission produced by Professor "Danny" Blanchflower and David Bell of Stirling university, which puts forward suggestions to address youth unemployment? In the summer, 700,000 young people will leave school and university; we need to tackle those numbers. Will my right hon. Friend look at the report, because it suggests good ways of tackling the problem of growing youth unemployment?

Alistair Darling: I would say two things to the hon. Gentleman. First, the International Monetary Fund noted in its recent report that many countries entered this problem
	"with greater fiscal space to expand".
	It noted that Canada, China, France, the UK and the US were such countries, so we are in a place where we can provide help for the economy. To put it another way, if we had not done so—if we had taken £20 billion out and withdrawn the power that we have given to the Bank of England to ease credit—the effect on the economy would have been absolutely harmful and very damaging, especially to jobs and the future prosperity of businesses.
	I made the point in the pre-Budget statement last year that, just as it is necessary to support our economies now, all countries need to live within their means over the medium term. That is why I announced measures to raise money in the pre-Budget report. It is important—and no one should be in any doubt about this—that, yes, we need to take measures now, as I have said, as the Governor has said, as the Prime has said, to support our economy, but all of three of us have also made the point that it is necessary to make sure that in the longer term we have a sustainable position and that all countries live within their means. That may mean making some hard choices, but it is necessary.

Lindsay Hoyle: My right hon. Friend is well aware of the difficulties. He has heard about manufacturing in Lancashire, and we have just lost more jobs at Leyland Trucks. We ought to look at how we can protect manufacturing when the economy goes into growth, and the best way of doing so is through a short-term working subsidy. Will he look at that, and if he is looking at how we can fund it, he can always end the VAT cut early so that that much-needed measure can put the impetus back into manufacturing?

David Drew: In the previous exchange my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) mentioned the need for wage compensation for those on short-time working. In Stroud we have worked up quite a sophisticated training package with both Delphi and Renishaws, and I thank the South West of England Regional Development Agency, Gloucestershire First and Unite trade union for that. The missing link is the need to recognise that people are putting their own time and money into the training package. If the Government could provide some additional funding for that, that would be important. I know that there is a paper before the Cabinet. May we have some clarity and some progress on this?

Alistair Darling: My hon. Friend raises an understandable concern for pubs throughout the country. He will know the number of pubs in this country has been declining pretty steadily over the past 20 years or so. He is right to say that there are many factors that influence the price of beer that the customer pays in the pub. That depends not just on duty but on charges made, in many cases, by brewers that are tied. I met representatives of the brewing industry and the industry generally fairly recently to discuss these matters and, as ever, I will keep them under review.

Tony Lloyd: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Financial Services Authority's compensation scheme has refused to recompense the charitable scheme of the Christie cancer hospital in Manchester for the £6.5 million that it lost when the Icelandic banks crashed. Will it be possible to urge the FSA to look once again at the rather unique position of charities—not, I recognise, only one charity? They are not equivalent to local authorities or individuals, but represent the many small donations of thousands upon thousands of individuals.

Alistair Darling: I said some time ago that UK Financial Investments Ltd., which holds our shareholding, and RBS are investigating that matter, with the lawyers looking at the position, and I have nothing further to add.
	It is important that we deal with the problems that we have inherited, but it is also important that, at all times, we look forward. We have to ensure that we put RBS and, indeed, the Lloyds group and any other bank in which we have shareholdings, on a proper and firm footing—that we rebuild them with the eventual aim of returning them to full, proper commercial operation, because that remains our intention. It is important that we keep our eyes on that and recognise, in RBS's case, that its new management are taking a different approach and doing what is necessary to repair the damage that has been done—and they will have our full support in doing that.

Stephen Timms: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the effectiveness of the time-to-pay arrangements that Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has put in place. With agreements reached very quickly, £1.7 billion-worth of tax has been deferred so far, and a large number of businesses have been able to continue when they otherwise might not have done. I would be happy to talk to him about the issue in his constituency, and look at the idea that he suggested.

Harriet Harman: Sixty per cent. of Conservative Members have second jobs, and I do not think that that is value for public money.
	The hon. Gentleman raised questions about what he described as manoeuvring. He mentioned a number of Cabinet Ministers, but I think that the manoeuvring on which he ought to be focusing is the manoeuvring of the shadow shadow Chancellor against the Leader of the Opposition. I think that it is a case of Hush Puppies on the Leader of the Opposition's lawn.
	The hon. Gentleman also mentioned my unfortunate gaffe in relation to Michael Sheen. Let me say that I think that he is an excellent actor, who is clearly capable of covering a diverse range of roles. He brilliantly played a socialist, Brian Clough. He also played the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He is a great credit to his native country, Wales.

David Heath: I previously welcomed the two days allotted to the Report stage of the Coroners and Justice Bill, but last week's timetabling was a disgrace. None of the clauses relating to the reform of the coronial system were reached; nor, indeed, were the clauses relating to the law of homicide. The Government literally got away with murder.
	May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to another problem? It relates to the Committee considering the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan). Setting aside the Government's difficulty that only six of their 12 MPs on the Committee bothered to turn up—I would love to have heard the conversation between the Deputy Chief Whip, the hapless hon. Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) and the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon)126 clauses and 20 new clauses remain to be considered by a Committee that has only three sittings left. Some clauses may not be considered either in Committee or on Report.
	I have a revolutionary suggestion for the Leader of the House. We should do something that is normal in another place and that used to be normal in this place: we should not have a restrictive timetable, and we should let this House scrutinise the Bill properly and fully. If there are difficulties later, the Government can react to them, and if there is a need to shorten speeches, no doubt you can intervene, Mr. Speaker, but the House should have its say on that important Bill, which would be welcomed by all.
	Most Members are aware of the difficulties caused by endemic AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in much of the developing world. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has been set up to deal with those issues. May we have a debate on the workings of the fund? The UK has a relatively good story to tellquite properly, we have taken the leadbut there is still a shortfall between the fair share of the British contribution and what is actually being received by the fund, which is desperately short of cash. May we in this House consider how we can better help people suffering from those awful diseases in other parts of the world?
	May we have a debate on the misuse of powers granted by this House to combat terrorism and serious crime? We heard a chilling report today about the number of local authorities that use surveillance powers for trivial purposes, and we hear repeated reports about the police using the Terrorism Act 2000 for inappropriate purposes, whether it is questioning 2,000 people at train stationstrain-spotters are apparently a threat to the statephotographers taking pictures of London street scenes, anglers who make the mistake of fishing at night, or the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) attending the House of Commons. Those cases involve misuse of those powers. Can we have a debate?
	Lastly, I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Lady has a Facebook account, and I do not know whether she has been poked recentlyFacebook users know what that meansor whether she has been asked to intervene. My Facebook friends are very upset at Home Office plans to snoop on sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. May we have a debate on that disproportionate and unnecessary extension of state powers, which leads us, despite it being 2009, inexorably to 1984?

Angela Browning: Now that the right hon. and learned Lady is taking an interest in the work ethic in this House, will she turn her attention to the work ethic of her fellow Ministers? In October, I wrote to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury on behalf of a constituent about bonuses paid by banks. As is my practice, I followed up with chaser letters, but to no avail, so we resorted to the telephone. On 3 March, my office phoned the private office of Lord Myners chasing a reply to my letter, only to be told that letters were waiting to be signed by Lord Myners. When still no reply came, we phoned again on 24 October, and were told that approximately 950 letters were now waiting to be signed by Lord Myners. We have been invited to telephone his office yet again this afternoon. I wish the right hon. and learned Lady would do something about this.

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for that question. There will be plenty of opportunity to debate this when we introduce the equality Bill. The reality is that women are not less committed to their jobs, or less qualified, less hard working, and less valuable in the workplace, but they are paid less. We need a strong equality Bill to make sure we strip away the secrecy that allows discrimination against women at work to flourish.

John Bercow: Given that we have 80,000 prisoners in this country, that two thirds of them reoffend within two years of release, and that the whole system, including reoffending, costs 18,000 million a year, is it not time that we debated the Centre for Social Justice report, Locked Up Potential, which calls for the scrapping of the three planned Titan prisons, for community prisons in their stead, and for an increased focus on education, training and rehabilitation?

John Healey: With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement on council tax in England and the capping action that the Government propose to take for 2009-10. Today, the Department has released figures showing that the average band D council tax increase in England next year will be 3 per cent., the lowest increase for 15 years. The average council tax rise for all households will be 2.6 per cent., the lowest ever since the council tax was introduced.
	There are three reasons for that. First, Government funding for local services is rising by 4.2 per cent. in 2009-10an extra 3 billion and the 12th successive annual increase above inflation for local government since 1997. Secondly, local authorities are taking seriously their responsibility to residents to tighten their belts and operate more efficiently. Thirdly, although I know local government does not like it, council tax capping helps concentrate the minds of councils. I have consistently said that we will take tough action when it is necessary to protect council tax payers against excessive increasesI said so to the House in November in my statement on the provisional local government finance settlement.
	I therefore want to set out for the House the action that we are now taking. Our capping principles relate both to an authority's council tax and to its budget requirement, which, broadly speaking, is the spending financed through the formula grant and council tax. I can confirm that our capping principles are that authorities' 2009-10 requirements are excessive if they set a budget requirement increase of more than 4 per cent. for 2009-10 or a band D council tax increase of more than 5 per cent. For an authority that was set a notional budget requirement following capping action in 2008-09, these principles operate by reference to that notional budget requirement and a related notional amount of council tax calculated for that year. The principles are described in more detail in a report that I am placing in the Library of the House.
	I realiseespecially as I look around the Chamberthat not all Members will be familiar with the concept of a notional budget requirement. Put simply, it is one of our capping options. It involves the Government's setting figures for an authority against which their future increases are comparedlast year, those figures were equal to the caps that would otherwise have been imposed in year in 2008-09. The requirement puts a greater onus on authorities to control their budget and council tax the following year, as they are measured against the lower baseline.
	Of the eight authorities against which we took capping action in 2008-09, four were set notional budget requirements. They were Bedfordshire, Norfolk and Surrey police authorities and Portsmouth city council. This year, two authorities have exceeded the principles I have announced. They are the police authorities of Derbyshire and Surrey. All other councils, police authorities and fire and rescue authorities have set increases within the limits I am confirming today.
	Derbyshire police authority has increased its budget requirement by 4.99 per cent. and its council tax precept by 8.68 per cent. Surrey police authority has increased its budget requirement by 4.82 per cent. and its council tax precept by 7.07 per cent. compared with the notional levels set last year. I am disappointed that Surrey has set an excessive increase for a second successive year. This is the first time under current legislation that we have had to take action against an authority more than once.
	Let me make it clear to the House that I am not announcing a cap on the council tax of Derbyshire and Surrey police authorities. I am starting a process that could lead to that. The authorities have a right under the legislation to challenge the proposed cap and to seek to justify their decisions. We will consider carefully all the representations the authorities may make before reaching any final decisions. Today I am writing to the chairs of the two police authorities confirming that I and my hon. Friend the Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing will meet them personally to hear their case in person. After that, when we have considered any case made by the authorities, we can proceed either to designateor capthe authority for 2009-10, either at the level proposed today or at another level, or to nominate an authority, which means either capping the authority for next year, 2010-11, or setting a notional budget requirement for 2009-10 as the baseline for any future capping decisions.
	Confirming a cap for this year would require the authority to re-bill residents for a lower council tax, with the cost falling on the capped authority. All authorities set their budget requirements and council tax in the full knowledge that excessive increases could lead to re-billing, so they can have no complaints about this.
	The capping principles I have announced today are expressed in terms of band D council tax. That is because the band D amount that authorities are required to determine is set out by the legislation. However, the average household pays around 240 less than the band D amount and the increase for average council tax next year is 2.6 per cent, the lowest increase ever since the council tax was first introduced by the Conservatives in 1993.
	I would like to end by looking ahead. Central Government funding increases, the concerted efficiency effort of many authorities and our commitment to tough capping action have resulted in some of the lowest council tax increases ever seen. Nevertheless, council tax payers will not be pleased to see that 86 authorities have set band D increases of more than 4.5 per cent., especially during this period of economic pressure all round, while 39 of these authorities have set rises of between 4.9 per cent and 5 per cent. Some suggest that that is because such authorities believe the Government have in place some standing 5 per cent cap. That is not the case. The Government have always been clear that our purpose when setting capping principles is to protect council tax payers from excessive increases. In the current economic climate, keeping council tax under control is more important than ever.
	So, I put all authorities on notice for next year. It would be a serious mistake for any local authority to assume that the principles I have announced today for this year are in any way a guide to the approach or the levels I may set in future years. I commend the statement to the House.

Bob Neill: I thank the Minister for providing advance notice of his statement. As hon. Members will know, he is unfailingly courteous and he unfailingly manages to put the most outrageous spin on events in the most reasonable fashion.
	May I ask the Minister to help me on a few matters? Is not the reality behind the Minister's words and this year's figures the fact that since 1997 council tax bills will have risen by 726 a year on band D, the band that is the basis of the statutory measure? Given that has happened across the board, in councils of all types and all political compositions, will the Minister accept that the Government must take responsibility for these hikes? Council tax bills are rising by 41 this April, compounding those previous rises. At a time when millions face losing their jobs or are suffering pay freezes, is that good sense? Is it sustainable that council tax bills are taking almost 120 from the pockets of families? Is it acceptable that council tax has gone up by an inflation-busting 105 per cent. on this Government's watch? Is not the reality that the Government inherited a local government finance system that worked and that has at least been consistent [ Interruption. ] I simply refer to a comment made by the Government in their 1998 local government Green Paper. It said:
	The council tax is working well as a local tax. It has been widely accepted and is generally very well understood.
	Of course, that was before the Labour party got its hands on it. The reality is that the Government have managed to break the economy and the local finance system as well.
	I hope that the Minister can help me on a couple of other specifics. Is not the 4.2 per cent. figure that he uses less than the whole picture? It relates to an increase in all grants, whereas the increase in formula grantthe only area where local councils have discretionis considerably less?
	The Minister is right that the efforts of local authorities should be appreciated, but might not that be because the Conservative party controls more councils than Labour and the Liberal Democrats put together? Would he care to reflect on that?
	Will the Minister confirm that one third of the basic state pension has been taken up in these council tax increases? Why has the proportion of pensioners claiming council tax benefit declined from three out of four to one in two on this Government's watch? Why has the Audit Commission raised concerns about the method of funding distribution? It has said that
	grant redistribution...has led to some councils putting up council tax more than others.
	Does that not raise the suspicion of fiddled funding? Is there not a need for a clearer and more transparent basis for setting the criteria for formula grant allocation?
	Can the Minister help me in relation to capping? Is he aware that the small print of the statistical release shows increases in parish precepts of 5.8 per cent., which come on top of the 8.1 per cent. rise last year and the 6.7 per cent. increase the year before?
	The Minister referred to the increase in the grant for police authorities, and two questions arise from that. First, is there not a need for greater and more direct electoral accountability of police authorities? Secondly, is there not a need for a control that is more effective than the crude capping device? Instead of imposing a cap, would it not be better to give local residents the opportunity to decide in a local referendum?
	Does the Minister regard it as acceptable that there is to be yet another council tax freeze in Scotland this year? It will mean that Scottish tax bills will be 265 less than in England, so might it not be time for the Government to adopt a policy of freezing council tax in England as well?
	Will the Minister confirm whether the Government intend to carry out a revaluation after the next general election? He will know that the suspicion is that they do: if so, that will be a further council tax stealth tax. Otherwise, can he explain why the Valuation Office Agency recently renewed its contract with Rightmove, which allows it to plunder estate agency records to find out how many bedrooms, bathrooms and parking spaces each home has? If there are no revaluation preparations, why has the contract been removed and public money spent on it? It was said to have been drawn up explicitly for a revaluation. I remind the House that the VOA is the same agency that made such a mess of the ports revaluation that we debated in this House only yesterday.
	I hope that the Minister will bear it in mind when he answers those questions that the council tax is the most sneaky of the Government's stealth taxes. It is cooked up in Whitehall, but it is councillors on the front line who take the flak and the Government hide behind them.
	Despite the Minister's courtesy and the reasonableness of his spin, today's announcement means that families will have to pay an extra 40 a year in the middle of a recession. That demonstrates a serious lack of reality on the Government's part.

Sarah Teather: I thank the Minister for giving me advance notice of his statement. He lauds the 3 per cent. rise in council tax as a success, but does he recognise that it is still higher than inflationas it has been every year? Does he also recognise that council tax is felt more keenly than any other tax, because it is paid straight out of people's disposable income? As he acknowledged, many families are finding it very difficult to make ends meet at the moment. If both partners lose their job, they receive council tax benefit to meet the cost of the tax, but does he accept that the family will get landed with a large and unaffordable bill if just one partner becomes unemployed?
	Does the Minister also recognise that what is happening in many families is that, although people are not necessarily losing their jobs, their employers are cutting back on their hours because of the recession? In that situation, of course, there is no safety net. Does he then accept that it is time that we completely reformed the system and introduced a fair tax based on people's ability to pay?
	Does the Minister also recognise that, in a recession, councils face both falling incomes and rising demand for their services? Their income streams from planning and leisure services, and even interest rates from investments are all drying up, yet more and more vulnerable families, desperate for help, are arriving at their doors. In the light of that, will he commit to a moratorium on unfunded Government mandates to local authorities? Does he recognise that they will only make things worse?
	I was aghast to hear the final sentence in the Minister's statement. If he were really serious about wanting to keep council tax low for British families, he would set out the principles for cappingif capping is what he has to dowell in advance, so that councils can plan before they set their budgets. Instead, we go through the same macho charade every year: the Government threaten councils with draconian action but will not tell them what they need to do to avoid the penalty, and the inevitable result is that council tax payers pick up the bill for the cost of rebilling local residents. Worse, that approach destroys any constructive relationship between central Government and local government. It is high time that the Minister stopped behaving like a playground bully in that regard, and started behaving like a responsible partner.

Robert Walter: The Minister will be aware from discussions that he has had with leaders of one of my local authorities and with me that what is excessive in percentage terms is not always excessive in cash terms. North Dorset district council continues to be one of the lowest taxing authorities for band D in the country, with a band D council tax of just over 100. I wonder whether the Minister could help a small local authority in my area with a very low band D council tax next year, by having a discussion, or asking his officials to have a discussion, with the council's officials, so that we do not end up playing roulette with council tax bills, and so that the council is aware of the parameters within which they should be working?

John Healey: The hon. Gentleman has been around for long enough to understand that we have a formula, which we consult on and debate in this House, for distributing funding to local councils. It applies equally across the country. He will also be aware that this Government introduced a system of floors. Without it, some of the councils that he may have in mind would, by rights, get less than they do. That floor is funded by taking the money off the rises for other authorities. He asks whether the residents of Cambridgeshire are aware of that; I ask him whether they are aware that his party plans, if it gets into power, to slash grants to local councils by 240 million from next month. That would, at a stroke, put an extra 1 per cent. on their council tax.

James Gray: Will the Minister kindly look into what can be done to help several hundred of my constituents in the estates of Cepen Park North and Cepen Park South in north Chippenham, just on the outskirts of Calne? Through no fault of their own, they have been moved into Chippenham and Calne town councils respectively, which means that their council tax has increased not by 3 or 4 per cent. but by 17 and 20 per cent. this year, causing outrageous pain to quite a large number of people. Perhaps they had move into those town councils, but would it not be possible to phase in that increase over a number of years? No one in the local authorities or town councils is saying that that would be illegal, so the Government could allow it to happen.

Bob Ainsworth: I have read the hon. Gentleman's contribution to that debate but, equally, I read what others say. There is a difficulty for Opposition Members, is there not? On the one hand, they are committed to a bigger Armyor are they? Clarification would be most welcome. On the other hand, I think they are committedor are they?to no increases in defence spending and, indeed, no promise to maintain the current level of defence spending. That is the Opposition positionnot of the hon. Gentleman, who is always careful about these things, but it is certainly the position of his hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor. The gap has to be filled somehow. The question of where the cuts would be made is an intriguing one.

Liam Fox: If, in the improbable event that we were able to technically uninvent nuclear weapons, they did not exist in any other part of the globe and there was no chance of them coming into existence in any other part of the globe, that might be a realistic suggestion, but while they do exist and while this country may be threatened or subjected to nuclear blackmail, we must maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent. There are strong arguments for big reductions in the number of warheads held globally. There is a strong economic, moral, political and military argument for big reductions in the stockpiles of Russia and America, and I can see no strong argument against such reductions, but we in the United Kingdom have to be the arbiters of our own destiny. We have to be able to determine our own security, and while nuclear weapons exist, we in the UK are prudent and wise to retain and maintain a minimum effective nuclear deterrent.

Peter Kilfoyle: In the light of what the hon. Gentleman said, what does he make in the letter of 16 January in  The Times in the names of Field Marshal Lord Bramall, General Lord Ramsbottom and General Sir Hugh Beachpeople who would not normally be partial on these thingswhich was headlined, The UK does not need a nuclear deterrent? Would he say that they are old soldiers who are out of touch?

Liam Fox: They are perfectly entitled to their opinion. I happen to think that it is wrong. The nature of the threats that we face has changed quickly from the relative symmetry of the cold war to a range of other asymmetric and complex threats, and it could very well change again. Ultimately, the onus of explanation is not on those of us who wish to retain a deterrent, but on those who want to scrap it. They must tell us why they believe that they can predict the risks that we will face in half a century's time. The Government's White Paper, published in 2006, described the independent British nuclear deterrent as
	an essential part of our insurance against the uncertainties and risks of the future.
	I fully endorse that sentiment.
	It is an interesting element of the political debate that many of the opponents of the carrier programme and our nuclear deterrent are the same individuals who at other times claim that Britain is already too dependent on, and too close to, American foreign and defence policy. In fact, not having the aircraft carriers or a nuclear deterrent would make us even more dependent on the United States for our security. While British and American interests are likely to coincide in the future, and the Anglo-American relationship remains our most important strategic alliance, the UK must ultimately be able to guarantee its own security.
	It has been widely reported in the media and written answers that Russia has once again taken up its cold war habit of probing UK airspace. I understand, as we all do, that for operational security reasons the Government are unable to comment in detail on the Floor of the House on what actions have been taken to deal with Russia's actions, but I hope that in his winding-up speech this evening, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones), will be able to give us an idea of the number and frequency of incursions and offer the House assurances that procedures are fully in place to deal with them.
	In addition, will the Minister say whether his Department has seen an increase in Russian submarine incursions into British territorial waters? We hear often about Russian planes challenging the integrity of our airspace, but seldom, if ever, about what is going on below the surface. There is good reason to be believe that such incursions are occurring, and as we are an island nation with only three naval bases, it is an important matter. I hope that he will address it.
	Those who think that state-on-state warfare is a thing of the past need only look at the recent invasion of Georgia by Russia and the build-up of Russian armed forces to have a sense of foreboding. One thing is certain: the global economic downturn has not deterred Russia from driving ahead with vast military reforms, requiring huge sums of money. On the contrary, it looks like it is spending at an ever-increasing rate. Russia may be building up from a low base, given the degraded state of its conventional forces, and it may not pose a direct threat to the security of this country, but the Russian leadership has shown in Georgia how it could destabilise our allies and threaten our security indirectly through a stranglehold on energy supplies. The cyber-attacks in Estonia, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, for which the finger points at Russia, mean that we must maintain our vigilance and invest in the technology to deal with threats that could in future occur in this country.
	Our armed forces have seen a lot of combat in recent years, in the Gulf war, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. Improvements in body armour and vehicles have meant that many injuries that were once fatal are now survivable. We will see many disabled young veterans, and our society will have to adjust to that. However, that is only the visible damage: what is invisible must concern us as well. I would like the topic of mental health in the armed forces to be much higher up this country's political agenda.
	The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for North Durham, told GMTV earlier this week that a study had shown that
	the actual number of people presenting with mental health problems is less than 2 per cent.,
	yet even if that is correct, it represents just under 4,000 people. That is a lot of individuals requiring a lot of care. The hon. Gentleman went on to claim that the study showed that those who had not been deployed on operations suffered more than those who had. There was something unclear about that, as it is true only of those suffering from mood disorders and depressive episodes. In fact, the report clearly states that the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder was higher among those deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan than among those not deployed there.

Liam Fox: Clearly they are separate, if related, issues, but the point about PTSD is that the number of people affected now are, almost by definition, the tip of the iceberg, because of the late presentation of the condition. We can expect to see more cases in future, and we as a society have a moral duty to prepare for that. We cannot only look after the physical injuries of those who fight in our name. We must place equal importance on those who suffer mental trauma.

Liam Fox: Indeed it is. Mental health services are the Cinderella service in the NHS, and as a society we must re-evaluate whether the way in which we treat those with mental health problems represents the social values that we would like to see in the world's fifth richest country in the 21st century. I met representatives of Combat Stress yesterday. Such charities do a wonderful job, but we will have to do a lot more if we are properly to fulfil our obligations to those who, as my hon. Friend says, suffer as a consequence of fighting for our security.
	They way in which we deal with the welfare of our armed forces is integral to dealing not only with the issues that we have mentioned but with our recruitment and retention problems. One thing that we need to consider is how we treat our armed forces compared with other public servants. I shall give one tiny example of mismatch that I was unaware of until my most recent visit to Iraq.
	As many Members will know, our troops returning from Afghanistan get a maximum of 48 hours' decompression, at the discretion of their commanding officer. It often occurs in unattractive surroundings in Cyprus, and we have all heard many tales of lengthy periods spent sleeping on airport floorsnot much respite for those who have faced bombings and shootings in our name. By contrast, the House might be interested to know that Foreign Office officials in Afghanistan get two weeks' compulsory decompression for every six to seven weeks in theatre. Even better, Department for International Development officials are entitled to the same two-week break away from post for every six weeks in theatre, but they can take a break anywhere in the world on condition that the cost is equal to or less than that of a flight back to the UK. That is not to say that we are treating our officials over-generously, but those in the armed forces will compare their treatment to that of people in other parts of the public service. That will have an impact on recruitment and retention.
	I end by giving the House a snapshot of what a decade of Labour's neglect has done to our armed forces. In procurement, the top 19 major procurement projects have gone over budget by a total of 2.95 billion. The Nimrod MRA4 project, which is delayed by 92 months, is 789 million over budget, and the order size has been reduced from 21 to 12. The Astute class submarine, which is delayed by 47 months, is 1.228 billion over budget. The Type 45 destroyer is delayed by 42 months and is 989 million over budget.
	Despite an almost unprecedented use of our armed forces in conflict since Labour came into office, Army numbers are down by nearly 2,500, the Royal Navy by nearly 7,000, the RAF by over 14,000 and the Territorial Army by 22,000. Our attack submarines are down by four, our frigates and destroyers by 12, our aircraft carriers by one, fixed-wing aircraft by 168, infantry battalions by four, and armoured fighting vehicles by 479. According to the Government's own figures, 31 out of 36 infantry battalions are under-strength, the shortage being equivalent to four battalions-worth of soldiers. Twelve out of 14 TA infantry battalions are under-strength.
	The Government abolished the Defence Export Services Organisation, to the delight of those who oppose the arms trade. In 2004, when we were already involved in two wars, the Government cut the helicopter budget in 2004 by 1.4 billion, and we are still suffering from the consequences. Despite the two wars, this year's defence spending, at 2.2 per cent. of GDP, is the lowest since the 1930s. To cap it all, the Government have not conducted a strategic defence review for this country in 12 years. It is a desperately sorry record, which will take a very different Government a long time to put right.

John Smith: Very little. This is a 12 billion PFI project spread over 25 to 30 years, but much of the risk will be carried by the private sector, and in particular by the two equity partners in Metrix, QinetiQ and Sodexo. This is a PFI project with much of the risk shifted to one side.
	As for the cost to the taxpayer, not only will we benefit from the most modern training in the world, but we will save money. The cost savings associated with reducing nine sites to one and getting rid of the current duplication in parts of our training provision over the next 25 years could be enormous. We win both ways. We win by securing the most modern training on offer in the most fantastic environment for learning, and we win by, over time, saving money in the defence training budget. That is what makes the project so attractive, and that is whycertainly in Walesit has received all-party support from day one.
	Progress is being made, and it is being made well. We want that progress to continue until construction starts next year. The facility will provide 1,200 courses. Up to 6,000 recruits at any one time, and up to 25,000 military personnel per year, will be trained on the purpose-built site. The MOD and the Metrix consortium have worked very closely with members of the local community, and have adapted some of their proposals after consulting them. We expect the detailed planning for this huge development to proceed relatively seamlessly in the spring because of the involvement of the community.
	Until recently RAF St Athan was the largest military base in the United Kingdom, so we are used to having large numbers of military personnel in the area, but we have challenges to meet if the project is to succeed and our military personnel are to maximise the benefits that they deserve. It is sometimes forgotten that the better trained and better equipped our armed forces are, the fewer casualties result when they engage in warfare. Superior training is much more valuable than large numbers.
	The Russian invasion of Georgia was mentioned earlier. One of the reasons the Russians are considering modernising their forces is that, by and large, that invasion was a disaster. There was little control over the military personnel. They succeeded because of their overwhelming numbers, not as a result of being highly trained and highly professional.
	We have a big challenge ahead of us, and we must get the infrastructure right for the project to succeed. The building programme will take three to five years, and we must ensure that the transport network is upgraded to match the large numbers of personnel.
	The project is based around the super-hangar, which was part of the Red Dragon project, and an auditor's report on the matter is imminent. Whatever the report says in criticism or otherwise of the Government or of the Welsh Assembly, we should not lose sight of the fact that the hangar was a critical factor in securing the 12 billion investment to transform military training. The hangar will become the core site in the training development.
	Our armed forces deserve the best, and through that project they will receive the best. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of this House will continue to support the project, as they have in the past. I hope that those who are responsible for making the decisions to improve the infrastructurethey are not necessarily in this Housewill ensure not only that our youngsters benefit, but that the local community does not suffer. I also hope that they take those decisions now.
	One or two critical decisions are coming up shortly. We will see a further extension of the contingent liability. Next month, the director of joint technical training for all three services will move to St. Athan. For those who doubt whether the project is on course, I point out that the director is taking a large team to oversee the transition from the existing colleges, as excellent as they are, to the brand-new, purpose-built site. The men and women who represent this country so courageously every day in some of the most difficult environments imaginablein recent years, the Defence Committee has had the privilege of visiting some of themdeserve nothing less than the best possible training in the world. They will get that at St. Athan, and I hope that the whole House rallies to ensure that the project is delivered on time and in budget.

Nick Harvey: Like the Minister and the shadow Secretary of State, I start by expressing condolences in respect of those who have died recently not only in Afghanistan, but, as we have heard, tragically and appallingly in Northern Ireland. The Minister pointed out that that takes the count of those who have died in Afghanistan to 152. Each of those casualties is an individual tragedy not only personally, but collectively for our armed forces. In addition to those 152 deaths, we must remember those who have been seriously injured or wounded, some of whom have been wounded in life-changing ways. We do not discuss those people as often as we should. There is something rather British about that, and it is certainly conspicuous that the Americans and, I think, the Canadians often pay greater tribute to their wounded personnel than us.
	It is not easy to make this point, but I shall make it nevertheless. Although the figure of 152 deaths is shocking, if one considers the length of time that we have been in Afghanistan, the huge number of our personnel who have served there and the extraordinarily dangerous work, it is worth pausing and counting our blessings that that number is not a great deal higher. I take the view that that figure might have been higher, which would certainly have been the case in the past. Among other things, we should pay tribute to the advances in medical expertise that have prevented the situation from being a great deal worse.
	Both Front Benchers rightly referred to the disgraceful scenes when the Royal Anglian Regiment paraded in Luton, and I echo the sentiments expressed by other hon. Members. It occurs to me that those who mounted those ill-judged protests shot themselves in the foot in terms of the cause that they were trying to promote. The overall effect was to give far more public attention to the home-coming parade than might otherwise have been the case and to unite public opinion in appreciation of what those troops have done on our behalf and in abhorrence at the protestors and their message. The public are now showing a greater appreciation of our armed forces; that has increased a lot in a remarkably short period of time. The regular scenes in Wootton Bassett that we have heard about are a leading example of that. In previous debates in this House, many Members have made the point that our work in Afghanistan is sometimes misunderstood by the British public, but I draw some encouragement from the fact that there is now growing appreciation of what we are trying to achieve there.
	Only five months have passed since we last had a debate entitled Defence in the UK, but a great deal has happened in that time: there has been a grave worsening of the economic crisis; there has been the decision to issue a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq; and a new US Administration has arrived, with a very different approach from their predecessor. I particularly welcome the announcement of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and I recall with some amusement that when we Liberal Democrats argued previously for that, we were lampooned on the basis that we could not have a timetable for withdrawal and it was naive of us to think that such a thing could be done as we should never signal our intentions to the enemy. However, we said at the time that the day would inevitably come when the Government would announce a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and they have now done so, and so too have the Americans. It is my sincere beliefas it was when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) first suggested to this House that there ought to be a timetable for withdrawal from Iraqthat that is long overdue and could have been done a great deal earlier.

Nick Harvey: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I do not think it takes very much for the Russians to interpret anything they choose as some sort of provocation, but one certainly does not want to give them any additional grounds for doing so, if one can help it.
	One can only hope that by the time we next have this debate, most of our involvement in Iraq will be over. I echo the points made in yesterday's debate about the fact that we should be getting on with the process of setting up an inquiry into exactly what we achieved there, what went well, what went wrong, why we got involved in the first place and what lessons we might draw from that for future engagements, particularly if we maintain, as the outcome of the strategic defence review, as I hope we will, a commitment to an interventionist policy and to expeditionary warfare. I hope that lessons will also be learned for operations in Afghanistan, where there are still many challenges ahead, most notably the real problem of overspill into Pakistan, which is, itself, very unstable at the moment. We will have an ongoing task preparing the British public for what will be a protracted conflict.
	The economic crisis poses a new threat to our national defence. We have been aware for some time that there is a black hole in the Ministry of Defence finances. A year or so ago, it was estimated at 2 billion, and it is in no danger of shrinkingindeed, there is every likelihood that it will get bigger and bigger. Estimates of true defence inflation vary; some say that it is at least 3 per cent., whereas other figures that are cited are higher. It is clear that the defence industry is not going to remain untouched by the current economic difficulties, and this will bring uncertain consequences for the skills bases, contracts and projects involved.
	In these uncertain times, the defence industry is partly immune from the wider malaise, but we must be careful to ensure that the economic difficulties do not impede further our activities overseas or the delivery of vital resources to the front line. The recent Defence Committee report highlighted that, even now, there are problems with equipment. Our track record on procurement is like a broken record: delayed, over budget and below requirement. The Government have yet to face up to the reality of how on earth they will be able to afford all the programmes that are still in place in principle on the budget that is available at the moment and what they will do to get industry on board, to try to make the delivery of existing projects more efficient.
	As part of the present crisis, we should look at current procurements, but problems from the past are also catching up with us. We have heard that Nimrod is to be grounded, which is an admission that the fleet is not fit to fly. It seems to have taken Ministers a long time to arrive at that conclusion, whereas aircrew, coroners and others have been saying for some time that the aircraft are not airworthy. It does not surprise me, in the light of the current economic storm, that Trident and the proposal to renew it has been mentioned. We heard from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) that some distinguished retired military figures have been debating it. We heard from the Minister that people have been debating it on the ConservativeHome website. There is renewed interest in the subject in the light of the economic crisis.

Malcolm Rifkind: I hope that the Minister is enjoying his time in the Ministry of Defence. I recall vividly that when I was appointed Secretary of State for Defence, I received a letter from the late Julian Amery, who said, You will enjoy the Ministry of Defence. They spoil their Ministers and make them feel heroic. As Defence Ministers inspect guards of honour, sit in tanks and fly in planes, one can understand what he meant.
	I want to begin by addressing what is, in a certain sense, a paradox. The Government will constantly say, as they have said for many years, that there is real growth in the defence budget and that there has been over the period that they have been in office. Technically, they are correct. They will also maintain that the UK, after the US, spends more on defence than virtually any other country in the world. That, too, is correct. However, one recalls the remark that one can use statistics like the drunk man uses the lamp postfor support rather than illumination. The Minister and the Government know as well as the rest of us that although those statistics might have some technical accuracy, they are combined with equally important facts that were referred to by my hon. Friend the shadow Defence Secretary.
	Over the past 12 years, we have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of aircraft and combat ships and in the manpower of the armed forces. We have also seen the Government's inability to carry out the task that they have appointed for themselves without extraordinary overstretch for the armed forces and an unprecedented use of our reserve forces, to which I shall return in a few moments' time.
	So, how does one explain the fact that despite real growth the outcome is so depressing? Part of it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) said, was that the increase in the cost of procurement projects is vastly greater than any retail prices index might show when it is used to determine the defence budget. That is clearly part of the explanation, but another element has been the continuing and increasing pressure to improvequite rightly, in many waysthe pay and allowances for our armed forces. That, too, is something that we welcome, but it has the consequences to which I have referred.
	However, the Government cannot escape the fact that another part of the explanation is that their policy over the past 12 years has resulted in far greater use of our armed forces in a series of wars, conflicts and operations. That has not been funded simply by the reserve, because it has involved a much greater utilisation of equipment. The fact that that equipment is used far more often means that it has a shorter life and constantly needs to be repaired and improved, and the overall impact has been of a very serious order.
	I freely acknowledgeindeed, I take great pride in the factthat, after the US, the UK and France are the only countries that can claim a significant ability to deploy armed forces around the world. There are larger armiesin Russia, India and China, and so forthbut, for various reasons with which I am sure that the House is familiar, the UK and France remain very important countries. I deliberately include France in this regard because it is comparable with the UK in the sense that both countries are able to match diplomacy with military capability, where that is appropriate. That is hugely desirable but, despite the incredible economic growth we are told we have had over the past 12 years and the huge cash going to the MOD, there has still been extraordinary overstretch in all sorts of ways. If that has been true during the years of plenty, what do we have to look forward to now, given that we have entered a period for which there are extremely lean implications?
	The hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) said that there was a need for a review at some stage. I think that he is right, but we must clarify what we mean by that. In a sense, I am addressing my comments on this matter to both Front-Bench teams because, although there will undoubtedly be a need for a review, it cannot be only a defence review or limited to our armed forces. Any review must combine the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with the Ministry of Defence in a way that has not happened before. Only then will we end up with a coherent and deliverable policy that does not repeat the mistakes of the past.
	Most of the time, our defence and armed forces are not an end in themselves but the means to an end determined by our foreign policy. Defence is the handmaiden of foreign policy: it is one of the meansalthough not the only oneby which we sometimes have to implement or advance our foreign policy objectives.
	Frederick the Great once remarked that diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments. Over the past 12 years, our armed forces have been used to a degree unprecedented since 1945. Under Mr. Blair, and the trend has continued under this Government, we have had a series of wars. Of course, wars did not begin in 1997, but what has been unprecedented is that most of the wars since then have not been wars of necessity. Instead, they have been wars of choice.
	I do not want to go today into the question of whether the choices were right or wrong. That is a separate issue but, in the past, most of the wars that we found ourselves in were ones in which either we or our allies had been attacked. War therefore became necessary, because no other option was available. However, the wars in Kosovo and Iraq were wars of choice, and the same is true of what happened in Sierra Leone: even though that was a very small combat operation, it was still a war of choice on the Government's part.
	I concede that the war in Afghanistan is more difficult to determine, because of 9/11 and the rest of the background. One could say that it was an intervention of necessity, but in every other respect the operations that have been putting such huge pressure on our armed forces were not imposed on the British Government. They were something no Government could have ignored; they were decisions, right or wrong, that the Government chose to take. If we are in that world, it is crucial that this essential reviewwhether the Government are Labour, or indeed Conservativenot just takes into account the foreign policy that the Government of the day want to pursue, but must actually be based on it.
	I have made no secret of my dislike of the policy of using our armed forces to intervene in other people's wars, but I want the United Kingdom to continue to have a global world role. We have much to contribute to the world and, for the most part, our contribution is highly beneficial, but the worst possible outcome would be for us to continue to have aspirations towards a global foreign policy while we refuse or are unable to provide the means to implement it, in particular its military component, whenever it may prove necessary. That would be the worst of all possible worlds.
	I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), perhaps more than to the Governmentthey are at the end of their term and we are about to begin oursthat implementing that role will be a crucial requirement. We know that the Government have been reluctant to deal with the comprehensive spending review, no doubt because they have problems not just with defence but with all sorts of areas of expenditure. However, with the exception of health and, I think, overseas development, there would be no ring-fencing of any budget by a future Conservative Government. In a way, I welcome that; it is right and proper that such matters are examined without preconditions and without too many pre-qualifications, but it is crucial that the next Conservative Government deal with the problemas much as the Labour Government have failed toin a way that does not continue the desperately serious overstretch of recent times.
	In the second half of my remarks, which is linked to the first, I shall concentrate on our reserve forces. I declare an interest as I was for eight years the honorary colonel of a Territorial Army regiment. Hearing about the invitation to do that was as much of a surprise to me as it may be to other Members. Normally when someone ceases to be Secretary of State for Defence, the armed forces never wish to see them or hear of them again, regardless of personality or the colour of the Government concerned, so the invitation was unusual and a great privilege. One day I must table a parliamentary question to find out how many Secretaries of State for Defence in the Labour Government were so approached after their term of office. I suspect that the answer would cheer me up enormously.
	The way in which the Territorial Army has been used over the past 12 years has been one of the most serious examples of problems in resources leading to policy decisions that have had, and continue to have, serious implications of a considerable kind. I remind the House that until the Reserve Forces Act 1996, the reserves had not been used since 1945. Such was the legal position throughout those years that there had either to be general mobilisation of the whole Territorial Army or no use of the reserves at all. For example, the Territorial Army was never used in the Gulf war or the Falklands war, because there was no legal basis that would have permitted that without mobilising the whole reserve force. That caused considerable frustration. Many individual reservists, having received splendid training, wanted to be able to use the skills they had been given.
	As Secretary of State, I initiated the policy changes that led to the 1996 Act and I am delighted that we introduced it. However, the Act has been used in ways far different from anything that was contemplated. Under the Act, it was contemplated that it would be possible to use individual units for a particular short-term operation, or to fill some immediate gap to deal with what nowadays we would call a surge requirement for a limited period, but that is not what has happened. There has, in fact, been a continuous use of the reserves in the wars and operations that have continued without interruption since the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. In the case of Afghanistan, our involvement looks like continuing for a number of years to come.
	We had better be clear about the implications of that. The Labour Government's general attitude towards the reservists has, I fear, been pretty shabby. One of the decisions that they took in the 1998 strategic defence review was to make a massive reduction in the size of the Territorial Army. It was 56,000-strong at that time; it has 36,000 people today. Over the past 12 years, we have entered the worst of all possible worlds; there has been unprecedented use of our reservists exactly when their numbers have been dramatically reduced to their lowest level for many generations, if not ever. It is that dysfunction and disharmony that is so indefensible, in my judgment.
	Let me give the House figures relating to what has happened since 1997. Since 2003that is, since our involvement with Iraq, Afghanistan and so forth17,000 reservists have been mobilised. That represents 9 per cent. of those mobilised in Afghanistan, and 4 per cent. of those mobilised in Iraq. I draw attention to a particular point: when we passed the 1996 Act, we did not envisage those sorts of numbers. We said that the use of an individual reservist should be such that his or her cumulative exposure should be a maximum of one year in three. That remains, I think, the legal position today. The Ministry of Defence handout, Future use of the UK's Reserve Forces, published on 7 February 2005, says, in referring to the massive mobilisation that the 1996 Act never envisaged:
	It is recognised that regular mobilisation of the VRF
	that is, the volunteer reserve forces
	up to this maximum is unsustainable.
	It goes on to say:
	The feedback...is that a limit of up to 12 months' service in aggregate over 5 years is more reasonable unless the individual volunteers for more frequent tours.
	That sounds good; that sounds as if the policy were becoming more flexible. However, the document goes on to say:
	Where possible, this is the level which we intend to apply unless no viable alternative exists.
	In other words, the Government make the concession, and make it meaningless, in the same sentence.
	It is not sustainable to continue with that policy. I say that to the Government and, indeed, to my right hon. and hon. Friends, because I suspect that they will have responsibility for the matter in the not-too-distant future. We already know the consequences. Reservists have been voting with their feet. After the Iraq war, between 2003 and 2005, some 15,000 reservists quit, and they have not been replaced. I mentioned earlier that the size of the Territorial Army is 36,000. That is not its authorised strength; its authorised strength is 42,000. The reason it has only 36,000 people is that it has not been able to recruit the numbers required. People have not been willing or able to join in the numbers that the Government presumably think necessary. That should cause serious concern to the Government Front-Bench team.
	I make one final point in drawing to the end of my remarks. It may be said, Well, you know, it is not just reservists whom we have had problems recruiting; the regular forces have had similar difficulties. That is true, but there is a crucial distinction that I do not think has yet been mentioned. Over the past few years, we have gone through a period of very low unemployment. Historically, when unemployment is low, the regular forces have difficulty recruiting to the extent required. For very sad reasons, that will now change. Now that unemployment is becoming a serious problem, it is likely that the regular forces will not have anything like the same difficulty recruiting. Although that will benefit the regular forces, exactly the opposite argument will apply to the Territorial Army. Precisely because unemployment is increasing and getting very high indeed, employers will have not the slightest incentive, when they have such a vast number of people from whom they can recruit, to chose those who, for one year in three, or whatever the period will be, are required by the Government to fill the gaps that they are not prepared to fill through the regular Army.

James Arbuthnot: My right hon. and learnedand, now we discover, gallantFriend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) has just given an appalling portrayal of the defence of this country clinging on by the skin of its teeth.
	Twenty-three years ago, just before I became a Member of Parliament, I sat in the Public Gallery and watched a Secretary of State mesmerising the House of Commons. If I thought that I would immediately follow him on the Floor of the House, after the intervening period in which he served as Secretary of State of Defence and Foreign Secretary, I would have been appalled, and I would have been right. However, it is a great honour to follow my right hon. and learned Friend in a debate on defence in the UK.
	I am afraid, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you may have a little difficulty keeping us in order, because the title of the debate is, at best, not very helpful and, at worst, utterly meaningless. It gives the impression of Dad's Army. While many of our forces are of course deployed abroad, there is also a plucky home guard ready to fight off the Russians if they turn the wrong way coming out of the northern approaches. As a title, Defence in the UK is complete rubbish. The Defence Committee is currently doing an inquiry into our relations with Russia. I shall confide to the House, hoping that it goes no further, that we do not consider ourselves under imminent threat of invasion.
	We can, of course, in this debate discuss home basing issues, and I intend to say a little about Project Belvedere. We can discuss some of the training issues, in so far as training takes place in the UK, and we have heard from the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) about St. Athan, which was a surprise to all of us. But Defence in the UK? Modern defence is not a geographical thing. It rests on industry, which is global, on our alliances, which are global, on our interests, which are global, and above all on our people in the armed forces, to whom I pay a very great tribute, and there are now few of them who stay in the UK for very long.
	Whatever we do has an effect elsewhere. What happens in Pakistan, whether it is an attack by an American drone based in Afghanistan on insurgents in South Waziristan, or the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan, affects attitudes in the Pakistani community and in other communities in the UK, because the media are global too. Communication is now instant. To distinguish between the UK and Pakistan or Afghanistan is becoming increasingly pointless, since everything that happens there will instantly affect what happens here.
	And that is what this country does not get. It is what this continent, Europe, does not get. They do not understand that leakage of nuclear weapons technology, as has already happened in Pakistan, thanks to A.Q. Khan, is just as likely to lead to a nuclear bomb going off in London as it is to one going off in Islamabadin fact, rather more so. The people of this country, of this continent, do not believe and do not understand that if we allow the region of Pakistan and Afghanistan to become even more unstable than it already is, it is not the Islamic countries that will be the targets of the new rulers of those countries. It will be us, here in the UK, so we cannot afford to fail there.
	But for reasons that my right hon. and learned Friend has just set out so eloquently, it looks as though, in financial terms, we cannot even afford to try to succeed. We are devoting to that particular struggle one twentieth of the number of troops and one fiftieth of the amount of aid that we devoted to the much richer and more stable area of Bosnia. We are using up our kit five times faster than we can replace it. We are fighting a war with a peacetime mentality.
	That is because nobody is effectively proclaiming in this country or this continent that defence is good, that we have the right to defend our values, and that we have the duty to do so. The Secretary of State for Defence recently came out with a reiteration of the defence planning assumptions that is almost identical to the previous defence planning assumptions. There is a sense of treading water. Afghan operations must not mean that the Ministry of Defence or the armed forces will in a few years be trapped in a time warp. There needs to be new thinking now, thinking ahead for future challenges, because they are not even future challengesthey are challenges that we face now. It is just that we have not recognised how serious they are.
	To give him his due, I believe that the Secretary of State for Defence believes in defence. I believe that of the whole defence ministerial team. However, the Ministry of Defence team alone does not have the capacity to deliver on the need to inspire and give the country the sort of warnings that Winston Churchill was giving in the 1930s. It needs the whole Government, including the Prime Minister, to pull in the same direction and they need to take the House, which is now nearly empty, with them.
	This may seem a cheap point, but it happens to be true. To most hon. Members, a defence debate means an opportunity not to discuss matters fundamental to the survival of this country and our values, but to go to their constituencies. Yes, their work there is important, but it is rarely a matter of life and death, as what we are discussing today is. The Government need to take the country with them, but the plain truth is that the absence of Russian hordes in the northern approaches has meant that defence has become something that we have taken for granted and that some people, such as those involved in the Campaign Against Arms Trade, are even uncomfortable with.
	In the House, there used to be three individual service day debates and two days' debate on the statement on the defence estimate. All that became meaningless as the services did more and more on a joint basis, and it rightly changed in the late 1990s and the early part of this century. However, now there are three debates on policy, procurement and personnel, and two more were addedon defence in the world and defence in the UKto make up for the defence estimates debate, those last two being particularly unfortunately named. We need a return to two days' debate at a set time each yearperhaps when the MOD's annual report is issued, so that there can be a useful focus. We need five general days' debate on defence, and perhaps more.
	I said earlier that I would say a little about the basing decision involved in Project Belvedere. For some time, the Ministry of Defence has been considering whether to re-base the Chinook helicopters that are currently at RAF Odiham. In the last debate on defence personnel, I discussed the issue at some length. I shall not do so again today; suffice it to say that the Chinooks should stay where they are. However, I want to say one thing. The Minister said that he was trying to bring the issue to a conclusion as soon as possible and that no decision had yet been made. Today we are having a debate on defence in the UK, and today would be the correct time to announce that the Chinooks will stay where they are. We all know that there is no money and no appetite to move them. The only obstacle in the way of the announcement of the decision, and in the way of some welcome clarity and direction for those who have been abortively slaving away at this ghastly project for years, is chronic indecision. I ask the Minister to make the announcementjust get it over with. He will feel a lot better for doing so, and so will we.
	Frankly, the design and implementation of the joint personnel administration system, or JPA, has been a disaster. Its failings were broadly responsible for the Comptroller and Auditor General's qualifying the Ministry of Defence's accounts. Neither the Ministry of Defence nor those, such as the Defence Committee, who scrutinise it, can see what is going on. Many personnel data are provisional, projected or uncertain and that has been the case for the past couple of years. In its quarterly reports, the Ministry of Defence cannot even properly report against some of its new departmental strategic objectives, because it does not have the necessary data.
	Those failings may sound technical, but they have caused profound unhappiness among service personnel. Today I heard about the case of an Army captain who was posted abroad and was not paid for three months. When he got back, he discovered that his credit rating had been severely damaged. The response was: It's your fault. You should have looked on the internet to see that things were working properly. Well, let us remind our soldiers to take their laptops with them to Musa Qala in future. We cannot treat our soldiers in this way.
	Unless the JPA is sorted out, there will be more grounds for dissatisfaction within the armed forces than it is comfortable to imagine. We need to treat those people properlyin their housing, in relation to their families, in their medical care, in their pay and conditions, and in their life after they leave the armed forces. That is not just because we need them, although we truly do, and not just because they are courageous and effective, although they really are, but because it should and must be a matter of honour for us to recognise and appreciate that they sacrifice everything for their country and for our values. They give us our freedom, and we owe them more than we can express.

Katy Clark: It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I want particularly to raise two issues that are of great concern to my constituency and have been raised with me by a considerable number of constituents.
	The first issue, which has already been raised by several hon. Members, is Britain's possession of nuclear weapons, particularly the decision to renew and replace the current Trident nuclear weapons system. As the Minister will be aware, this has for many generations been higher up the political agenda in Scotland than in other parts of the United Kingdom. There has traditionally been a far higher level of opposition to nuclear weapons in Scotland, for a variety of reasons.
	From the 1950s, we have had ongoing campaigns against nuclear weapons, so the issue has been very visible in the public eye. Since the 1950s, we have seen considerable shifts to the left in public opinion. Parties of the left are far stronger in Scotland than in other parts of the UK, and social democratic ideas are much more central in the political establishment. There is also the fact that nuclear weapons systemsPolaris, Poseidon and Tridenthave been physically based on the west coast of Scotland, which is our major population base. In constituencies such as mine, we do on occasion see the submarines travelling up and down the Clyde, so people feel that this is far closer to them. That cuts both ways. A number of jobs are provided at the Faslane nuclear weapons base, but there is awareness of and concern about the situation and a debate about whether it is appropriate for Britain to possess nuclear weapons at all.
	I welcome some of the statements recently made by the Government, particularly by the Prime Minister, on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their possession by countries throughout the world. Those statements are reinforced by what is being said by the newly elected Administration in the United States of America. As the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) said, we are moving towards next year's non-proliferation treaty review conference. It is therefore appropriate that the British Government are trying to put this issue far higher up the political agenda, not only because of the new US Administration but because of the greater risks that we all face in the world as the years go by.
	The position taken by the Conservative Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), suggests that his party sees no circumstances whatsoever in which Britain could move towards not having nuclear weapons. My fear for many years has been that many of the arguments made for Britain's possession of nuclear weapons could be used by any country in the world. The implication of those arguments is that any and every country in the world will possess nuclear weapons as time goes on, and that is a world that we should all fear. We need to put moves on restricting and removing weapons of mass destruction at the top of the international agenda.
	Such points have been put to me repeatedly by my constituents, and increasingly in the last few months I been asked whether, given the current difficult economic circumstances, it is appropriate for Britain to be spending something in the region of 76 billion on these weapons. The figure is indeterminate; we do not know exactly what it will cost to replace the current Trident nuclear weapons systems, but we know that historically such projects have tended to end up being more expensive than originally envisaged. Whatever the cost, it is likely to be huge, and given some of the other comments made in the debate about our armed personnel and the support that people receive not just through pay, but when they return home having been in the militaryparticularly those suffering from physical or psychological injurywe have to question whether that is the best use of the nation's resources.
	I place on the record my hope that the Government will look again at the issue of Trident renewal, and use opportunities available in the coming debates on the non-proliferation treaty to consider ways whereby Britain can move to a non-nuclear future, and perhaps more importantly, to use that as mechanism to ensure that we restrict as much as possible the possession of such weapons of mass destruction throughout the world. Any other position that Britain took would be hypocritical. If we say that it is good enough for us, it is difficult to say that it is not good enough for other nations. In our foreign policy in general, such hypocrisy has damaged us, particularly in the past few years in the lead-up to the Iraq war, and in the repercussions of that war and the war on terror. It would be a significant failing if we continued down that path.
	The other issue I want to talk about is the future of the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency, which affects my constituents and those of a number of other hon. Members. The DSDA was formed three years ago after the Ministry of Defence won an in-house bid in competition with two private sector companies. Indeed, since its formation, another look has been taken at whether the service should be privatised or remain in house.
	There was great concern that in the pre-Budget review before Christmas the DSDA, along with a wide range of other public sector organisations, was named as an organisation that would be looked at again for efficiency savings, and to establish whether it is an appropriate part of the public sector to consider for outsourcing, privatisation or some other model. More than 250 privatisation programmes are running in the Ministry of Defence, and an operational efficiency programme is currently being looked at by the Treasury to determine whether the DSDA should be looked at again.
	Approximately 350 people are employed in a military depot in my constituency by DSDA, and there is a great deal of concern about the proposals. I have written to the Secretary of State and asked him, along with Treasury officials, to meet the relevant staff trade unions to talk through the process. I have also asked them to meet not just myself but other interested MPs in whose constituencies affected depots are sited, on a cross-party basis. We understand that there might be some kind of announcement on the issue in the Budget, so I ask Ministers again whether such a meeting could be set up.
	One frustration is that since the announcement, it has been difficult to get information about the process. This might be an early stage, and there might not be a huge amount of information to share, but there is concern that there might be an announcement in the Budget when staff have not had an opportunity to take part in the process. Will Ministers get back to us on that, either in the debate or in the next few days, and will they meet the relevant Members? There is a great deal of concern, given the Ministry of Defence's history on the issues of privatisation and job security. I therefore ask Ministers to reconsider the matter, and I would appreciate it if they would come back to us with some dates for a meeting.

Julian Brazier: May I start by paying tribute to the 5th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, better known as the Argylls, and the 3rd Battalion The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, a Territorial Army unit, both of which are based in my constituency? The Argylls returned from Afghanistan with one young man killed and their commanding officer severely wounded, but despite that he is still commanding the regiment while recovering from an extremely bad gunshot wound. There were other wounded among the ranks of the Argylls and the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion TPWRR, who went to serve with them. Canterbury is extremely proud of them.
	Despite the title of this debate, it is inevitable that all speakers will be tempted to stray into operations outside the UK, but I wish to make a wider point. The shadow Secretary of State made the point that defence planning assumptions are never right, whoever is in charge; one can never gaze into a crystal ball. It is worth reflecting on what a large proportion of the operations we have been involved in over the past 100 years were wholly unexpected. Had we been sitting in a debate of this kind in 1914it is interesting to read the record of House of Commons debates at the timewe would have found that all serious opinion, or very nearly all of it, was focused on the homeland. We would have been talking about defence in the UK, because the crisis in Ireland was so bad, with guns being run in huge numbers into the island by those on both sides of the argument. Those who talked about the possibility of a continental war were thought to be eccentric.
	In 1982, nobody expected the Falklands war the week before the Argentines attacked the islands; in 1990, we had ruled out, only three months before the first Gulf war, the possibility of deploying armoured vehicles outside the NATO area; and, of course, today's operations were wholly unexpected on 10 September 2001. I could give other examples, but the fact is that, with the one important exception of the second world war, nearly all the large-scale operations in which we have been involved were unexpected a relatively short period beforehand.
	That is why I say that although I listen with huge respect to all those who are rightly saying that we owe it to our forces to do the best possible job in supporting them on existing operations, it would be a disaster if we ever designed our armed forces entirely around existing operations. In his excellent speech, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) touched on a paradox that we face. We seem to be increasingly widely committed and there are so many threats out therea number of colleagues have talked of threats outside this country, but there are some clear and distinct threats that particularly concern us todaythat whoever is in government will face a huge mismatch between the resources that realistically will be made available and the potential demands on them. I make no apology for saying that the reserve forces play an extremely important role in other English-speaking countries in squaring that imbalance, and they could play a bigger role here.
	Although my right hon. and learned Friend gave a brilliant summary of the problems in the reserve forces, I disagreed with him on one area. For the moment, however, I wish to pay tribute to the Government and to the Minister for the Armed Forces in particular. This small-scale but thoroughly worth while review, which was largely his brainchild andperhaps I know more than I should dowas pushed through despite considerable opposition within substantial elements of the Ministry of Defence, both uniformed and civilian, has shed some light on opportunities missed and on things that need tackling. I very much look forward to seeing it come before the House, and I welcome the comment that there would be an oral statement and that, courteously, the team would be brought to meet the all-party group so that we can have a full discussion on the detail.
	I think that General Nick Cottam did an extremely good job, although I pulled his leg quite publicly on disappearing to St. Paul's just before the job was finished, in engaging with the reserve forces. He and his team got round and talked turkey with people making huge sacrifices on what was, after all, a secondary activity for them. None the less, that activity resulted in almost exactly one in every 1,000 on operations being killed in action, and we would do well to remember that; I believe that the tally is 17 at the moment16 Terroritorials and one air reservist.
	I will not repeat the statistics showing the large role that the reserve forces, despite their proportionately small size, have played in Iraq and Afghanistan, and earlier in the Balkans. Instead, I wish to focus on how an imaginative, forward-looking Government could make more use of reserve forces to square the resource circle. Reserve forces cannot solve the problem entirely, but they can contribute to the solution.
	Compared with the other major models for all-volunteer forcesthe US, Australia and Canada, but not France, where that model is newwe have a much smaller proportion of reserve forces. Broadly speaking, half the land forces in those countries are reservistthe figure is just over in the US, and just under for the other twoand their air and naval reserves are very large, whereas ours are very small as a proportion of the total.
	I have four examples to give. First, 2 Signals Brigade exists to provide communications in the event of a nuclear strike or a major disruption, such as after a large-scale terrorist action. The brigade is not used for operations and sends relatively few people to operational theatres because it has a niche capability that we do not need for current operations. Hon. Members should consider how much less expensive 2 Signals Brigade is than keeping that capability within the regular forces.
	Secondly, whyat a time when there is so little money and so much more that needs doingdo we retain air defence regiments in the regular Army? I know people will say that they can be used in a different role in operational theatres, but they have a niche capability and, while we should retain it within the British armed forces, the likelihood that it will need to be used in the near future is very low. In fact, I suggest that the possibility of a major terrorist strike that disrupts our communications is more likely than the need to fight an enemy with a superior air force in the near future. Have we thought about how we could release funds for other desperately needed priorities if that role were given to the reserve forces?
	My third example is mine clearing. Traditionally, that was performed mainly by the Royal Naval Reserve, although of course some capability is needed in the regular Navy. It is an odd function, because most of the time, even on operations, it is not needed, but when it is needed we need a lot of it in a hurry. The two most obvious areas for our focus would be if the situation in the Gulf took an unexpected turn such as in a confrontation with Iran. I know from having worked in that region that there is an enormous area of very shallow water, where mine warfare could easily be conducted. The second is the waters around the UK, which is the subject of today's debate. Many of our ports have long, shallow approaches.
	How is our mine warfare capability currently organised? Almost all of it is within the regular Royal Navy. Therefore, I would argue, we have the worst of all worlds. We have expensive mine-clearing vessels, which carry people with very important skills, many of which are widely available in the civilian world, including deep-sea diving, survey work and so on. Each vessel has one, very expensive regular crew. If some vessels instead had two or three reservist crews, they would be much cheapera reservist crew is roughly a fifth of the cost of a regular crewand, crucially, we would have a surge capability. God knows, mines are easy to lay these days, and if there was a mining threat and we had to try to clear all our major ports at onceif a couple of mines had gone off, we would not know where the others werewe would be able to work the vessels round the clock, which cannot be done with a single crew, especially as some of the skills involved, such as diving, are very tiring. An individual can dive for only a few hours a day.
	My fourth example concerns unmanned aerial vehicles. I have not had time to pursue this subject matter through parliamentary questions, but somewhere there is a bit of a story about cost overruns, with which I suspect the Minister is familiar. Very small numbers of UAVs play a significant role in Afghanistan. They are very expensive and, I am told, the exercise is turning into rather an expensive one to man. I suggest that that is an area where reservists would be idealthe skills involved in operating a UAV are widely available outside: hand-eye co-ordination, understanding of IT systems and a range of other skills in which it would not be difficult to train reservists. There must also be opportunities, particularly if we need a surge capability, to think about how we can transfer that role, at least in part, to the reserve forces, as we proposed in our all-party group report.
	I have given four specific examples; let me now give a general one. To my mind, it is quite astonishing that our air reserves are so tiny. The Americans have a third of all their fast jet fighter formed units and getting on for half of all their pilots in their volunteer reservethat is, the air national guard and the US air reserve. In the Air Force, we have a total of 28 reserve pilots, nearly all of whom are Hercules pilots. That is all. A phenomenal investment goes into training a pilot, even before we think about fast jet pilots and if we consider only helicopter training. The cheque is torn up, in Britain, as soon as the man leaves the service. The Australians and, in particular, the Canadians have made slightly more use than we have of their flying reserves and the Americans have made vastly more use of them. There must be more scope for this.
	The Territorial Army has a highly successful small helicopter regiment that will be disbanded in a few months' time, which seems extraordinary to me. The Navy has a very well developed air reserve, with more pilots than the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Few people from the air reserve have been deployed in operations, although one or two have, but its members have played a significant role in substituting for regulars and saving a lot of money in the training pipeline.
	Unbelievably, the Royal Naval Reserve officer who commands the air reserve, which has been consistently up to strength, has been downgraded by one rank. His regular staff officer is being taken away, and the next stagewhich will mean that he will be unable to do his jobwill be his replacement by a regular officer. The Royal Navy has, shamefully, already decided to replace the commander of the Maritime Reserves with a full-time regular officer who had never done a civilian job. It is no criticism of the individual concerned to say that that will not provide leadership to people who are giving up their free time or provide understanding to his regular brother officers in the RNR about what royal naval reservists can do.
	The situation in the volunteer reserves at the moment is, in many areas, fairly dire. I agree with most of what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said. In a recent presentation to the all-party group, Air Vice-Marshal Paul Luker, who is an ex-regular and the chief executive of the Council of Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations, commented on an establishment of 42,000, although he said that the true figure is probably not much over 30,000. He said that officer recruitment was generally poor and that it was proving difficult to maintain the officer corps, which is at the absolute heart of a successful service. He also said that he was concerned that some aspects of recruiting were so focused on the next operational tour that it was losing sight of building the unit and nurturing the cadre of officers and NCOs needed to maintain its ethos and cohesion. He said that that was particularly true of the Royal Marine Reserve and the Auxiliary Air Force squadrons, which had been used even more heavily than the Territorial Army. I welcome the review, which I think will provide some modest steps in the right direction. We are all anxiously waiting for it.
	I turn now to the One Army Recruiting process and its two single-service counterparts. Paul Luker said that the process was not really delivering. In the old days, the reserve forces and cadets associations ran recruiting, and he did not make a bid for that to be restored, but I firmly believe that, although centralised recruiting can lead to significant economies of scale in such matters as the purchasing of television time and so on, the remaining local element of recruiting should be given back to the RFCAs. They have the peopleon their council, or in the media and local communitieswho have the feel for local areas that regional brigades do not.
	The local regional brigade commander in my constituency is excellent. Indeed, he is one of the best people to have held that post in all the time I have been the MP, but the occupant of that role is changed every two years. The result is that no one, however good he is, can have quite the same relationship with the community.
	We need to address the issue of officer training, some of which can be done very cheaply and easily. In the Officer Training Corps, the University Royal Naval Units and the University Air Squadrons, we have a substantial resource that we do not tap sufficiently. Very little effort is made in the central planning undertaken by the Army and the other two services to make use of them for the volunteer reserve.
	I was very proud to see my son, a medical student at King's, pass out of the first phase of the London OTC. It was a family occasion, because the commanding officer was his first cousin once removedthat is, my wife's first cousin. However, it is a measure of how much the Army has lost its way in respect of the OTC that my son has been told that choosing to sign up for a cadetship would mean that he would be required to leave the that splendid organisation. The reason is that he might be subject to an operational deployment, which would cost him a year in his planning.
	The solution, as we said in our report, would be for the senior Army medical staff to get off their buttsif the House will forgive the expressionand sort the problem out with the royal colleges. That would be better than the present situation, which is that they just say, Well, people serving in TA medical units can suffer from that, but we are not having our regular Army people, including cadets, suffer in that way.
	I want to focus on the OTCs for a moment longer and try to explain what I mean. Coming through a typical OTC are large numbers of very keen young men and women, a few of whom will join the regular Army and some of whom might make good Territorials. However, whereas the arrangements in a university regiment in Australia or in a reserve officer training corps unit in America are closely tied into the training cyclefor the Army Reserve in Australia or the National Guard in Americathat is not the case here.
	For example, a person who has served with the OTC, completed a commissioning course from Sandhurst and wants to do a special-to-arm course cannot schedule it to fit into the same university vacation. Such a person cannot therefore get right through the system while at university, but the Americans and Australians have recognised that students are short of money but rich in timeexactly the opposite of what they will experience afterwards. With proper organisation, we could have an officer corps whose members were very well trained when they reached the end of their time at university.

Robert Key: It is a particular pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), not just because he and I both have the privilege of representing very fine cathedral cities, but because he has unrivalled expertise and practical knowledge of our reserve forces. It was also a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), because over many years the Staffordshire Regiment was part of the backbone of the infantry, just as in its day, once upon a time, the Wiltshire Regiment was tooit is now part of the Rifles.
	I shall concentrate more on the civilian side of defence in the UK. We face a paradox. When I was a child growing up in Salisbury in the 1950s, a substantial proportionperhaps 20 per cent.of the people on the streets, particularly at weekends, would have been in uniform. In a garrison town, surrounded by garrison towns on Salisbury plain, I recognised the importance of the military and may even have taken it for granted. Now, Her Majesty's forces have as much popularity, status and respect as at any time since the 1950s, when of course they were regarded as the saviours of our country, which indeed they were. Now, they again enjoy great status.
	Perhaps the Royal Navy, as the senior service, does not enjoy as much status as the other forces, simply because people in the Navy are more restricted to their home bases. However, if one visits Estonia, as I did earlier in March, one finds that the Royal Navy is held in the highest regard there. Its visits, such as the visit of HMS Illustrious to Tallinn later this year, are anticipated enormously by the whole population, not least because the Royal Navy helped the Estonians in their independence war in 1919. The Royal Navy should have more status. People do not recognise the purple role that it plays now, or how prominent it is in running our operation in Afghanistan. It may have fewer ships than it did but, my goodness, it is proving its expertise, not just at sea but in military theatres generally.
	I want to mention rehabilitation for Her Majesty's forces at places such as Headley court near Leatherhead. The need for a special swimming pool there led to the remarkable establishment of Help for Heroes by my constituents, Bryn and Emma Parry. It has caught the imagination of the nation. It started with a swimming pool and it has grown and grown. The attention that we are at last beginning to give to stress disorders and mental disorders among serving and former members of Her Majesty's forces has led to new support for Combat Stress, for example. The Army Benevolent Fund has never been busier, along with the Army Families Federation and its sister organisations for the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.
	Of course, the respect shown in local communities as coffins are borne from RAF Lyneham in Wiltshiremy hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) will know a great deal about thatis reflected throughout the country in the welcome home parades for soldiers returning from active service held in many of our towns and cities. Only last weekindeed, the process finished this weekwe reformed legislation governing the way in which Her Majesty's coroners carry out their duties with regard to military inquests. We can at last say that we are doing the decent thing by military families.
	On 27 June, we will celebrate armed forces day. Flags will fly throughout the country for the whole of that week, and we will show our appreciation. Yet when the pollsters and focus groups report their figures, that support is not translated into political priorities, so political parties do not respond by giving defence a higher spending priority. For example, the Ipsos MORI poll of October 2008the latest one that I have been able to findfound that over four fifths, or 81 per cent., of British adults say that they are favourable towards UK armed forces. That is the highest figure that MORI has recorded since that tracking study began in 2003. Only a tiny minority3 per cent.are unfavourable. Some 52 per cent. support the UK armed forces' presence in Afghanistan, while just over a third35 per cent.oppose it. Some 43 per cent. support the UK armed forces' presence in Iraq, and 45 per cent. do not. Levels of support for both those operations are higher than they were last year.
	It is interesting that a distinct divide appears to have emerged between civil society and the military. There is much greater casualty sensitivity in the west than there was. There has been a growing polarisation of religious belief across the world. There is growing concern for universal human rights across the world, and prosperity has emerged as the overriding socio-political value when considering defence, rather than territorial gain, or Russian tanks rolling across the north European plain.
	Although the public's attitude to war is less positive than it was, public support for the armed forces has generally remained consistently high. As Peter Riddell commented in the  Royal United Services Institute Journal in February last year,
	Insofar as there is a gulf
	between the military and the public,
	it is of ignorance, not sympathy or support.
	So it is an extraordinary paradox that defence of the realm is way down the list when it comes to why people vote for a particular party. I hope that that is not a reflection of the fact that most of the time in the House of Commons, defence is regarded as a bipartisan issue. It certainly is on the Defence Committee. That is an extraordinary situation.
	The present position, which we all recognise, of overstretch and underfunding, as regards both people and procurement, means that we have to take a long view of how we got to where we are, and where our nation and our military are going in future. Our history and heritage teach us, and economic necessity demands, that we sustain and pay for our armed services to be trained and equipped for high-intensity warfare with global reach, complemented by a strong diplomatic servicea comprehensive approach, as we are learning to call it. Both should be underpinned by increasingly sophisticated security services and intelligence networks.
	The British have taken their language, ideas, trade and armies around the globe for many hundreds of years, but gone are the days of empire. The legacy is there, but we are not stopping and withdrawing to our island. The reason is straightforward: British forces are needed to protect UK global interests in trade and shipping. More than 90 per cent. of our imports come in by sea, and those trade routes and vessels must be secure against foreign state intervention, as well as terrorism and piracy. That is why our forces must have global reach, and that is why they need aircraft carriers. They must have power projection by land, sea and air, and that must include amphibious capability and unmanned maritime systems, increasing use of unmanned combat air systems and space-based remote sensors.

Gerald Howarth: My hon. Friend referred to the eight Chinooks that are being modified in his constituency. There is a rumour going round that suggests that perhaps only one of them will be available for deployment by the end of the year, but it will not have full operational capability. It will be put into theatre merely to prove that it can be done. From his knowledge, is my hon. Friend in a position to comment on that, or should I ask the Minister?

Robert Key: I fear that I am not in a position to be able to answer that. If I could change places with the Minister after the general election, doubtless I would find many Chinooks flying operationally.
	I saw, however, that real progress has been made on that programme, and there is a huge determination on the part of the work force at Boscombe Down to ensure the highest standards of workmanship. People do not realise the complexity of those helicopters. Stripping down and replacing the wiring means replacing 20,000 wires per helicopter. It is an extraordinary undertaking.
	I mentioned the Nimrods. Then there are the unmanned aerial vehicles, which will increasingly be seen in the skies over south Wiltshire as we introduce the training regime led by the Royal Artillery in order to deploy UAVs operationally and in infantry tactics.
	The science and technology apprenticeship schemes at Boscombe Down are a splendid innovation. When I was first elected to the House, every year I had to present the prizes to the apprentices at Boscombe DownRAF Boscombe Down, as it was then called. There would be 50 or 60 apprentices a year. Then there were years with none. Now, I am glad to say, they are coming back. There will be more than 20 apprentices this year. That is a great compliment to QinetiQ and to the work force at Boscombe Down.
	Only an hour or so ago there was an announcement from an important defence procurement manufacturer in my constituency. Chemring Countermeasures has announced that there is to be a new 18.5 million investment in two new flare decoy manufacturing facilities. Every time any of us travel on a military helicopter, particularly if it is in theatre, we are used to the noise of the flares going off and of the chaff going out behind the helicopter, or any other kind of aeroplane. They have to be made somewhere. They happen to be made at High Post outside Salisbury.
	That company has an ancient and interesting history. The sadness is that there will be a loss of jobs over the next year or two because higher safety requirements mean that fewer people and more machinery have to be used. It is safer, better and even more reliable, but the downside concerns the people. I am glad to say that the company is working hard to ensure that the skills of those people can continue to be usefully deployedlocally, I hope. There is great family loyalty in the defence industry. In that factory I know, because I have met them, that three generations of several families are still working there.
	The story of Chemring Countermeasures goes back a very long time and is typical of defence procurement companies all over the country. It started back in 1941 with Chemring developing processes for metallising fabrics, which sounds an unlikely link, but it went back longer than that. In 1933 the Wessex Aircraft Engineering Company was set up. It was taken over by Bryant and May. Eventually that became Schermuly, which in turn became the British Match Corporation, incorporated with Wilkinson Sword. It is an extraordinary story of the interlinking of defence industries within the manufacturing base of our country.
	Eventually the business all came together in 1997 as Chemring Ltd. On this important day for that company in my constituency, I pay tribute to the company and to the work force that has made it so important as part of the everyday life of our servicemen and women at the sharp end, not just on land, but in the air and at sea, because that remarkable company provides countermeasures and flares for all three services, and sells substantially into our NATO allies as well.
	I finish by making another point about defence spending in this country. Sometimes senior figures in the shadow Cabinet groan when they see me coming because they know that I will say we should double defence spending. I know that that wish is unlikely to come to fruition in current economic circumstances. We all have to be hard-nosed about that, but we should seriously consider why we have the lowest defence spending as a proportion of our gross national product since the 1930s.
	It would have an electrifying effect on the country's economy and much else for which this nation stands if we were to rebuild confidence in our nationhood, as well as in our defence industries and the armed forces, by increasing substantially the defence budget. This, I believe, would not be resisted by the electorate because of the paradox with which I started. We know that Her Majesty's forces have never been held in higher regard except during the second world war and the years immediately afterwards. Why can we not match that former regard, and remind people that their quality of life, standard of living and ability to buy white goods in the sheds on the edges of our towns and cities depend on the defence budget and the dedication of all three forces? We should start arguing from that point of view. Defence is very much in our national interest in respect of consumer spending, energy, water supply and climate change, because it changes all our economic and political perceptions. If we harness that fund of support for Her Majesty's forces, we will do the nation a service, andabove allsay to those forces, Well done and thank you.

James Gray: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), whose expertise on matters European is second to none. I had the pleasure of serving alongside him, sadly only for a year, on both the Western European Union and the Council of Europe. Through my own ignorance, I never quite discovered what either organisation was for, what their purpose was, or whether they have oneto this day, no one has explained what it is. None the less, I am sure that they do fulfil an awfully useful purpose, and I congratulate him on the many hours that he spends seeking to discover it.
	My hon. Friend and I will not agree, I fear, on the importance of ESDP. My view is that the European Union is a first-class trading organisation among independent nation states, and the notion that it could have anything called ESDP is nonsensical. Why on earth the EU is busily engaging in a very good operation in Somalia defeats me. What on earth it is doing there I cannot imagine. Nor do I know why it is doing policing in Kabul. Those things can be done either by NATO or independent nation states, and I fear that I have a deep cynicism about whether European co-operation of the kind that my hon. Friend describes has much future. I readily say, however, that that is simply because of my bog-standard little Englander ignorance, and I am sure that I can be educated in such matters as time goes on.
	Secondly, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, who is temporarily not in his place, about the structure of these debates. I am glad that today's debate has not been a topical debate, unlike, I believe, the last event of this kind. None the less, I feel that the present structure of our defence debates is rather false, and does not quite work. Those of ussuch as mewho are defence anoraks turn up on a Thursday afternoon, drone on for a quarter of an hour, and then go home. No one listens to a word we say, and the sum total of human happiness is not necessarily advanced. That should not be happening at a time when the nation and the globe are involved in such potentially catastrophic and vastly important defence matters. The entire House of Commons should be eagerly involved, and competing like mad to secure a five-minute slot. I hope the powers that bethe Government, the Leader of the House, or otherswill think about whether we could restructure our defence debates, at least while the current turmoil in the globe continues, and find a way of attracting greater interest in them.
	As always, however, this has been a successful, well-informed and wide-ranging debate. I shall not seek to add to what my many better-qualified colleagues have said about assorted defence matters. Instead, if the House will forgive me, I shall focus on a topic which may sound like a constituency issue more suited to an Adjournment debate, but which I would argue has a much wider significance for the defence of the realm than for my own constituency.
	We know that, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, one of the biggest failings one way or anotheralthough the exact way in which it has failed is debatablehas involved helicopters. There are those who would say that we have not got enough of them, there are those who would say that we have not got enough pilot hours, and there are those who would say that both are the case. There are others who would say that although we could always do with more, we have enough to manage with. That, broadly speaking, is the Government's line. I think everyone would agree, however, that the way in which our joint helicopter forceArmy, Navy and Air Force helicoptersare currently managed is not ideal. The helicopters are based in a variety of places around Britain, and there is very little coherence. Joint Helicopter Command, which I believe was created only a year or two ago, experiences some difficulty in acting as a coherent purple organisation.
	There has been a strong demand from Joint Helicopter Command, and from the three services, for a move towards the establishment of a single unified base for, in particular, RAF and Army helicopters. That strikes me as an immensely laudable and hugely sensible ambition with a great deal to be deal to be said for it, and I think that just about everyone in the defence world agrees that it should be realised. One senior officer involved with helicopters said to me the other day, referring to Project Belvederewhich is what we are talking aboutThey cannot afford to do it, but they also cannot afford not to do it. I think that there is a good deal of truth in that, and I shall return to it in a moment.
	There is a reason for my interest in Project Belvedere. The House will recall that some eight or nine years ago it was announced that the C130K fleet of Hercules aircraft based at RAF Lyneham, in my constituency, would reach the end of their useful life in 2012or would progressively approach the end of their useful life in the years leading up to 2012and that, at that stage, the C130J fleet of modern planes would be transferred to RAF Brize Norton, just down the road. All the RAF's transport capabilities for passengers, freight and tankers would be based there.
	Many of us argued strongly against that decision, which was advanced for two main reasons. First, it was claimed that combining the two bases would produce a cost saving. That may be the case, although a substantial capital cost will be involved in the move, and only accountants will be able to tell us how long it will take for the modest year-by-year saving to pay that off.
	I was talking to one of the base commandersI will not say who it waswho would be involved in Project Belvedere and in the transfer of his helicopters to RAF Lyneham if that were to happen. He maintained that the cost would be so large that it would take 50 years to repay it. I said, That is a very interesting argument. If that applies to your helicopters being moved from base Xwhich I will not nameto Lyneham, how much longer would it take to repay the vast amount that it will cost to move our Hercules fleet from Lyneham to Brize Norton? He said, Well, it is certainly 50 or 100 years, and it is possibly never. I said, I will not name you, but I will quote you, which I have happily done.
	The accountants are going to have to answer much more clearly on how they can add the thing together to make a sum that justifies shifting 3,500 RAF people and up to 50 planes from RAF Lyneham to RAF Brize Norton, which is already too small. Anyone who has had the misfortune to travel courtesy of crab air to Afghanistan or Iraq, which I have done two or three times recently, will know that RAF Brize Norton is already one of the least hospitable bases and that it is demonstrably too small for the job that it does at the moment. If about 50 Hercules, A400Msif they arriveor C-17s were also operating out of the base, goodness knows what it would be like.
	At the moment, three tactical runways, two of which are at RAF Lyneham and one of which is at Brize Norton, are used for transport. If we were to bring everything together in one place at Brize Norton, all our eggs would be in one basketthere would be only one runway, and there are many reasons why it might be inoperable. I was there the other day waiting to fly out to Afghanistan. I was delayed for 12 hours because of ice on the runway. If all our transport capabilityrefuelling, transport and passenger planeswere in Brize Norton, who knows what the end result would be? The first argument in favour of collocating everything at Brize Norton, namely cost, is questionable, and perhaps the accountants will have a second look.
	The second argument for collocation at Brize Norton advanced at the time was that the A400M was coming in by 2012, that it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread, that it was a European co-operative project and that it would be a superb aeroplane. We all know that the project has been delayedthe latest I have heard is that it will be delayed by up to four years, although no doubt the delay will be longer than that. The Secretary of State has made it plain in a couple of interventions from the Dispatch Box that he is by no means confident that the A400M will be bought by the British forces, at least to the extent that we said we would buy it.
	The whole future of transport is questionable. Most people in the RAF would prefer to see a fleet consisting of Hercules and C-17s, which is the ideal combination of sizes. From memory, we already have six C-17sperhaps the figure is eightand we can certainly buy or lease more. Hercules and C-17s seems like a nice combination to me. That combination operates nicely out of RAF Lyneham, and there is no reason why it would have to be based at Brize Norton. At the time, the argument was that the runways at RAF Lyneham are too short for the A400M to take off or land. That is demonstrably not the case, and that excuse was used to achieve other things.
	I would prefer to see RAF Lyneham remain the same as it is at the moment. I hope that the delays with the A400M and/or the delays in rebuilding RAF Brize Norton will lead to that outcome. I hope that that door is not entirely closed. Without being party political about it, if there is a Conservative Government at some stage in the futureof course, there might not beperhaps Conservative Front Benchers will consider reversing that decision. There may well be good economic reasons why it is impossible, but I hope that they do. In a recent informal conversation with one of my Front-Bench colleagues, I was encouraged to hear him say that Conservative policy is not to close RAF bases. We have to keep RAF bases openin 1942, we discovered that we did not have enough. That was an informal remark, and I may be corrected by other Front Benchers, but I will seek to persuade them to keep RAF Lyneham as it is.
	Let us assume that for good reasons advanced by accountants or others, it is not possible to keep RAF Lyneham as it is. At the moment, 3,500 service personnel and 750 civilians work on the base. If one brings those people's other halves into the calculation, some 10,000 people in my constituency owe their livelihood one way or another to RAF Lyneham, and there are also retired service personnel. It is, therefore, a major part of my little constituency, and plays a very significant part in its economy, so the future of RAF Lyneham is of gigantic importance to me as a constituency MP.
	I hope and think that I speak for the vast bulk of my constituents in saying that we would very much like Lyneham to remain military. We do not think it is right to convert it to any other use. We do not want a new townan extension of Swindon, perhapsor a refuelling base for Virgin Atlantic; that is a proposal I have heard, but it would certainly not be appropriate. We do not want it to become a gigantic industrial site either. We would very much like it to remain military. Wiltshire is home to the military, and the military are home for us in a very real way. We are very proud of our contribution to the military; half of the British Army is in Wiltshire. We want Lyneham to remain militaryeither RAF or, potentially, Army.
	Therefore, if we can find a way of making Project Belvedere work and of bringing all the helicopters from all the different commands togetherleaving aside the Royal Navy, which will stay in Yeovilton, I thinkunder Joint Helicopter Command at RAF Lyneham, that would be an eminently sensible solution. That would involve 15,000 people and 230 helicopters, so there would be quite a significant environmental price to payalthough I am encouraged to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire telling me that in all his time he has only had one or two complaints about noise from Chinooks. Nevertheless, I am aware that if we were to have 230 helicopters operating from RAF Lyneham and 15,000 people, compared with the 3,500 we have at present, there would be a price to pay in terms of developing the air base. My soundings so farI cannot claim to speak for everyone by any stretch of the imaginationare that the vast bulk of the population would be ready to accept that environmental price under certain conditions, which I will return to in a moment, in return for the continuing economic viability of the area. We want the jobs and the military there, and therefore putting up with helicopter noise, which is a little bit noisier than Hercules noise, is something that I think the vast bulk of my constituentsalthough not all of them by any stretchwould be ready to accept.
	In that context, I say to the Minister that if Project Belvedere goes ahead, it would be nice to enter into a period of negotiation with the RAF and the Army about flying protocols, so that we could minimise the disruption to the surrounding areas. I have already had brief discussions with the Army, who tell me that the majority of flights would be in a narrow corridor going from Lyneham down towards Salisbury plain, and we could enter into negotiations to minimise disruption and noise for local people.
	The main problem is not knowing. In recent weeks, I have had a number of discussions about this matter with the Minister, as has my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire, and rumours have flown to and froBelvedere is on. Belvedere is off. Who knows what's happening? We haven't got the money, but we need to do this, and so on. It is important that a decision is made soon. Rumours coming back from various people in the MOD suggest that there is a plethora of committees and commands, and reports going to and fro and minutes of meetings, and that no one can make up their mind what to do. It is important now that the MOD decides either to go ahead with Project Belvedere or a lesser form of it, oralthough I am very opposed to thisnot to go ahead with it at all.
	If the MOD comes to that final conclusion, the last thing I would say on this subjectI am sorry to have bored the House by focusing on what is largely a constituency matteris as follows. I have seen what happened to RAF Wroughton, which my own Conservative Government made the foolish decision to close in 1995 or so. It lay empty for many years, and there was vandalism and dereliction and total waste. I have seen the same in the town of Corsham in my constituency. The Army moved out in the '50s or '60s, and the town went down for a long time, although it is now coming back up again because of investment through the Defence Information Infrastructure process at Rudloe Manor.
	The one thing I would not want to see at Lyneham is indecision and its lying vacant. We must not pull out the Hercules and then have nothing happening there at all. We must have clarity in terms of what is happening. The military might want it for some purposeperhaps a garrison returning from Germany. Alternatively, if the military come to the clear conclusion that they do not need it and that they will leave in 2014 and hand it over to the local authorities and others who will make something out of it, I would welcome that, too. It is important that we now start to get a little bit of clarity about what the future holds.
	I repeat my main point: I hope very much that we can keep the Hercules fleet at Lyneham. If we do not, I hope that we can get Project Belvedere and get the helicopters there. If we do not, I hope that we will find some other military use for Lyneham. If none of those three options works, all I would say is, for heaven's sake let us have a clear decision and let us get on with the next stage in our life.

Julian Lewis: One is sadly accustomed in these debates to paying tribute to service personnel who have been killed in theatre, previously in Iraq and currently in Afghanistan. One did not expect to have to refer to the murder, for that is what it was, of two young soldiers in Northern Ireland on the eve of their bravely flying out into theatre in Afghanistan, where they would have faced danger from a more recognisable enemy. I would like to raise, in a gentle way, for Ministers' consideration, one small issue that has not been raised today. They may not be aware of a petition that has drawn attention to the fact that these two young soldiers have not been accorded the same sort of ceremonial honour in being returned to the mainland of the UK that they would have been accorded had they died on active service in Afghanistan. These young men did die on active service, just as much as if they had been killed in Afghanistan, and it is only right and proper that they should be accorded the same sort of ceremonial honours. I hope that something can be done in that respect, particularly as it appears that one of their last acts was selflessly to try to protect their comrades as they came under fire.
	In this debate, one Minister and three Government Back Benchers have spoken, one Conservative shadow Secretary of State and seven Conservative Back Benchers have spoken, and one Liberal defence spokesman has spoken. No Liberal Back Benchers have made a speech, despite the heroic efforts at in-flight refuelling by two Back Benchers making short interventions. In a debate on a subject of such breadth and importance, it behoves both the Government and those other parties that purport to be part of the Opposition to make sure that they are here in strength to speak up for their various views of the interests of the armed forces.
	I come to the contributions that were made. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) examined in customary depth and detail the defence training project scheduled for his locality. It appears to have been a timely speech, given the likely contents of a reportstill embargoed, but due out tomorrowthat might have taken the edge off it. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) spoke warmly of the support for the armed forces, and especially for the Gurkhas, shown by his constituents. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter) made a very persuasive speech. If anyone could persuade me that the European security and defence policy could complement, rather than undermine, NATO it is hebut even he has some way to go before he manages to achieve that.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), who has just spoken, was, as usual, passionate in his campaign against the proposed amalgamation of RAF Lyneham and RAF Brize Norton, but he was also deeply realistic, saying to MinistersI saw assent being indicated from those on the Treasury Bench on this matterthat if there is to be some sort of adverse decision, it is better that it should at least be made clear as soon as possible.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) stressed in encouraging detail the very high public support for the services and for service charities. He pointed out that we still have major global interests and therefore need global reach, and that of course relates to both the amphibious capabilities and the future aircraft carriers. It must be said that he has a special interestperhaps he ought to have declared a family interestin the aircraft carriers, given the excellent news that his nephew has been recently appointed to command HMS Illustrious. He also made a very interesting point about the size of the defence budget and what we would like it to be. He has the freedom to make that point, but I do not, although I shall be returning to that area a little later.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) asked about how state-on-state war would be paid for. The answer is that if it ever happenedGod forbid that it shouldit would not be paid for in any planned sort of way. We do not go out and about looking for state-on-state warfare: we tend to get involved in such warfare when we are attacked by large, hostile states. What we have to do then, frankly, is find the resources irrespective of whether we can afford them. What we have to do in times of peace is at least retain the nucleus for expansion across the spectrum of armed forces capabilities, so that if we ever do have to fight for our very lives in or around our homeland, we would at least have the potential for expansion, which we would not have if we closed things down, bulldozed the sites and said that we would never do anything other than counter-insurgency in the future.
	I was greatly encouraged to hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Defence Committee, that his Committee has decided that we are not under imminent threat of invasion from Russia. Indeed, I would have hoped that his Committee took the same view even throughout the cold war. One of the reasons why we were never under threat of imminent invasion was that we were sensible enough to keep our defences strong, not least by retaining a nuclear deterrent that made it clear to any other power that no matter, how many times over they could obliterate this country, they would not be able to do it without paying an unacceptable price.
	My right hon. Friend gave an appropriate and sombre warning about Afghanistan, but that does take us somewhat outside the scope of this debate. I agree that questions could be asked about the parameters of these debates. I have tended to look at this one not as Defence in the UK, but Defence of the UK, as it complements the subject of defence in the rest of the world. That is a commonsense way to look at it.
	We heard a typically magisterial speech from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind). He sets an example to the House of what it means to have experience, intelligence and fine judgment. His observations on the use of the reserves as a substitutenot from time to time or to fill particular gaps, but as a cheap alternative to adequate regular forceswere very well made indeed. The consequences of what he talked aboutthe under-resourcing of defence as a wholeare clear for all to see. One has only to look at the reports of the breakdown of relationships between the service chiefs, when they spend time rubbishing the projects of the other armed services in order to try to get a better share of an inadequate cake, to realise the poisonous effect of what has been done to the harmony, efficiency and future potential of the armed forces.
	I shall repeat what I have said every time that I have had the privilege of making a speech in one of these defence debates. We cannot go on as we are. We were spending 2.5 per cent. on defence when we went into Afghanistan and, as Tony Blair said in his valedictory speech on HMS Albion, we are still spending 2.5 per cent. on defence if the extra cost of Iraq and Afghanistan is added. We have, therefore, been engaging in two medium-scale conflicts on effectively a peacetime defence budget.
	I do not know yet what final determination will be made by the leader of my party and the shadow Cabinet on pledges before the next election. One thing that I have been allowed to say repeatedly, however, and I say it againthere is nothing so good in counter-propaganda as repetitionis that a future Conservative Government will fully fund the defence commitments that we undertake. That is not happening at the moment, and it must mean that there will have to be either greater funding in the future or fewer commitments. Which of those two it will be, or whether it will be some point in between, will be revealed nearer the time. However, there will not be a continuation of fighting wars in a way that undermines the future viability of the core armed forces.

Julian Lewis: I do indeed. I also remember during the cold war yearslike many middle-aged men who were involved in those arguments at the time, I am prone to looking back to that time too oftenthe argument was always to ask why Britain was spending a greater proportion on defence than most of our NATO partners when our European colleagues and partners in NATO were spending much less. In fact, we were spending more than just about all of them except for the Americans. As somebody once pointed out, that was the wrong comparison. Those other countries were on our side. We should have been looking at what was being spent by our potential adversaries rather than what was being spent by our allies. We have to spend as much as the country can afford to fulfil as many military commitments as we need to undertake. We must not be guided by what other countries do, especially if they are on our side rather than our potential adversaries.
	I now come to the question of the nuclear deterrent. It was pleasant to hear the traditional voice of Labour unilateralism coming in an intervention from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), who spoke of the letter in  The Times from three retired generals, and from the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Ms Clark), who was concerned that other countries would follow the UK's example if we do not get rid of our nuclear weapons, presumably by acquiring nuclear weapons of their own, and claimed that such projects are historically far more expensive than when planned.
	I have to correct the hon. Lady on both points. Both Trident and Polaris are famous, if not unique in MOD terms, for having come in on time and on budget and, in at least one case, under budget. As for other countries, they will not make a decision to acquire nuclear weapons because Britain, an existing nuclear power, continues to maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent as long as other countries still have nuclear weapons themselves. Whether countries acquire nuclear weapons or not is a matter of their hard-headed interpretations of their own strategic interests. Throughout the cold war and subsequently, whenever people on that side of the argument were challenged to name a particular nuclear or near-nuclear country that would follow suit if we unilaterally gave up our nuclear deterrent, they have never been able to give an example.
	As for the letter from the three generals, I would like to think of one of the three, Sir Hugh Beach, as a friend of mine. He is a very gallant and courteous man, who won a military cross fighting the Nazis in world war two. I think very highly of him, but he has always been against Britain's having an independent nuclear deterrent. I was pleased that, when the Royal United Services Institute invited him to write a long article for its journal, I was encouraged to write the rejoinder for the opposite side of the case. I invite anoraks on this subject to get hold of the February 2009 edition and immerse themselves in those two articles.
	As well as being one of the most decent Members of this House, my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) is certainly one of the most respected on the subject of reserves, but I want to concentrate on another aspect of his excellent speech. He went to the heart of the matter when he pointed out that virtually all the wars and conflicts in which we have been engaged in recent history took us completely by surprise. He gave a long and extremely impressive list, but I should like to add one more example. In the 1920s, this country's armed forces were so unclear about where the next war was likely to come from that each of them prepared its own hypothetical contingency plans against entirely different potential enemiesthe Royal Navy against Japan, the Army against Russia, and the Royal Air Force against France. At least one of them got it right, but I leave it to hon. Members to decide which.
	I turn now to the contribution made by the Minister for the Armed Forces. I was surprised at his feeble attempt to suggest that the Conservative policy on the maintenance of Trident was unclear. The Conservative party is only major party in this House that has supported the maintenance of the strategic nuclear deterrent ever since Britain acquired one.
	I take the Minister back to that happy day of 14 March 2007, when this House voted by 409 votes to 161 to proceed with the steps necessary to renew Trident and keep the nuclear deterrent for a new generation. On that day, 87 Labour MPs joined the Liberal Democrats in opposing the motion. If the Conservative party had done what the Liberal Democrats did and found an excuse to vote against the Government, the Government would have been defeated. So it really ill behoves the Government to say that the Conservative party, which saved their correct policy to go on with the nuclear deterrent, is in any way uncertain about the matter. If the Minister had any doubts in that regard before today, the excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), the shadow Secretary of State, means that he can have no more in the future.

Julian Lewis: I am glad the hon. Gentleman sees that. Perhaps that was why he described the intervention as interesting rather than giving it more positive support.
	My time is all but up but I should like to say a word or two[Hon. Members: It is up.] Okay. I shall say a word and a half about the carrier project. In a written statement on 11 December, the Secretary of State said:
	We have concluded that there is scope for bringing more closely into line the introduction of the joint combat aircraft and the aircraft carrier. This is likely to mean delaying the in service date of the new carriers by one to two years.[ Official Report, 11 December 2008; Vol. 485, c. 67WS.]
	However, although Lockheed confirmed that it was ready to deliver the first aircraft by 2014 the company was told by the MOD that it would not need the aircraft until 2017. The Minister with responsibility for defence equipment stated on 23 February that
	the reprofiling of the carrier programme was in no sense due to any delays in the JSF programme.[ Official Report, 23 February 2009; Vol. 488, c. 10.]
	I have been referred by the Prime Minister in written answers to questions that were not reached on a Wednesday, both yesterday and last month, to each of those answers, so I should be very grateful indeed if the Minister would give us the reason why the aircraft carrier programme was delayed. It has not been made clear yet.

Kevan Jones: As usual, the debate has been wide ranging. The contributions were not only well informed but covered interesting subjects.
	Today, on the Conservative Front Bench we saw the neo-cons versus the Cameroons. The hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) is a strong advocate for the nuclear deterrentI would recommend to anyone his pamphlet arguing the case for it. It would be interesting if there were a Conservative GovernmentI shall not say that I look forward to the dayand the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) was at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the hon. Member for New Forest, East at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, with the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) running some bit of Government equivalent to a Siberian power station.
	Today, the Conservatives have set out clearly that the nuclear deterrent is not up for negotiation. The reason that clarity is important is that sad anoraks, such as me, who read ConservativeHome can see that the central hierarchy of the party are trying to test the waterto find out whether negotiation would be possible. The clarity we have heard today is very important.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring made an interesting speech and, in his usual way, covered a large number of subjects. He seems to think that the Navy is separate from the rest of the defence budget. He talked about the Navy being betrayed. I want to reinforce the point made by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces. We have the largest building programme ever for the Royal Navy14 billion over the next 10 years. That is a clear commitment from the Government to the Navy. It is important to ensure not only that we equip the Navy with the ships it requires but that we have the skills to produce those ships in UK yards.
	Resources were mentioned. I look forward to hearing debates on the issue as the election gets closer. The hon. Member for Aldershot is clear about his position; he said on Newsnight on 6 September 2007 that it was absolutely crystal clear that if his party came into office on the next day, they would spend more money on defence. Clearly, that line has now changed. I think that when it comes to the defence budget, we will see more confusion of the sort that we saw on tax policy this week in the Conservative party.

Kevan Jones: I am sorry, but I will not.
	The hon. Member for Woodspring raised the issue of decompression. Every time I have been to theatre, I have asked about the issue. I was in Afghanistan a few weeks ago and asked again whether the decompression period was long enough. It is 48 hours in Cyprus. Every single time, both commanders and normal soldiers tell me that that is long enough. I have said this to the hon. Gentleman before: I ask him not to downgrade in any way the role of our civil servants serving overseas. I do not think that he did so intentionally. Those staff are volunteers, and many are doing dangerous jobs in dangerous situations. We should thank them for the role they play.
	I do not know whether anyone here has seen the film, Groundhog Day, but the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (John Smith) perhaps reminded a lot of us of it. He is a great, strong advocate for St. Athan. A lot of Members have asked where the new facility is, and I had to think very hard about whether it actually was in his constituency. I pay tribute, as he did, to the brigadier and the project team who are delivering that facility. It is a challenging and complex project that will not only deliver the training we need, but, as he rightly highlighted, have an economic impact on his constituency and part of Wales; that should not be underestimated.
	The hon. Member for North Devon spoke of the number of people who have, sadly, been wounded or died in Afghanistan. May I join him in paying tribute not just to the men and women who have lost their lives, but their families, and to the medical staff, to whom he drew attention? I will not repeat the arguments on the timetable for withdrawalit is one occasion on which I agree with the point made by the hon. Member for New Forest, East.
	As for the larger issue of where we are, we are making changes, and there is new thinking on how we deal with the arms plot to provide more settled lives. The regional forces review will address some of the issues that, particularly in the Army, have not been previously addressed. I am not a great supporter of a defence review, because I fear that it would take a lot of time and effort, and detract from the immediate task at hand, which is not just supporting our service men and women but looking at their operational commitments.
	Turning to the contribution from the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), may I say that, yes, it is a great honour to be a Minister in the Ministry of Defence. Anyone who has that privilege, as he did, knows that we deal with some remarkable men and women in a great Department. I was a little concerned, because I know that he is a former Foreign Secretary, and he used the words, wars of choice. I am worried that that may be interpreted as our being able to pick and choose the conflicts in which we become involved. I accept that he is not an isolationist who thinks that England can somehow divorce itself from the rest of world. Howeverand he knows this from his experience in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defenceone of those Departments may not think about the implications for others of its decisions. Having been on both sides, seeing that must have been difficult for him.
	I do not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's perception of why and how reservists are used. The position has changed. I never cease to be impressed when I go to theatre by the dedication of the men and women I meet. In some cases, certainly in reconstruction projects both in Afghanistan and Iraq, their civilian skills serve a useful purpose.
	The right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) raised the issue of Belvedere. May I tell him and the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has got the message? We need to move on this, and my right hon. Friend agrees that the delay and uncertainty are not helping. The right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire raised the issue of JPAthe organisation that procured it is based in his constituency. May I sayand I have said this beforethat it is a standing issue when I meet the head of defence personnel? There have been problems, but it is a remarkably successful IT project compared with those in other Government Departments. The important point about JPA, which I want to push, is how we achieve increased access to it. Internet access is the way forward. There are some security issues, but we are addressing them.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Ms Clark) raised the issue of nuclear deterrence. As the hon. Member for New Forest, East said, it is nice to see that the unilateralist flame still burns in our partyalthough that is not something that I ever supported, I hasten to add. My hon. Friend mentioned the DSDA, and I will take that message back to the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies).
	I have a lot of time and affection for the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton), but I thought she was occasionally a little intemperate in her speech. She takes a close interest in protected vehicles, and in a previous debate expressed thanks and recognised the advances that had been made. She asked for numbers, but I do not want to give the number of individual vehicles for operational reasons. Great advances have been made. When I was in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, I saw not only how they saved people's lives but the adaptations that had been made in theatre. We can rightly be proud of that.
	The hon. Lady spoke about Merlin. The reason for the upgrade is that it is not a simple matter to move an aircraft from a peacetime role in the UK to an operational role. The issue was not that the helicopters could not fly without their rotor blades, but the need to increase efficiency. As a result, the number of flying hours that we are getting out of helicopters in Afghanistan has substantially increased.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) paid tribute to 22 Signals and thanked the people of Stafford for their support for the armed forces, particularly for the Gurkhas. The Gurkhas are within my area of responsibility, so I know that they will warmly welcome the support they are getting locally.
	On the Borona project, I was in Germany on Tuesday and was briefed about the process. There is work to be done on sites and time scales, but I assure my hon. Friend that the project is still on schedule and under active consideration. It is important that where we site super-garrisons we have good working relationships in advance with local authorities, and I am sure he will play his role in that.
	The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) made a passionate and well-argued speech. He is a great advocate for the reserve forces. I, too, congratulate the Argylls in his constituency. We should not forget the reservists who have been wounded or killed in action, especially members of the special forces. We should ensure that they get recognition. I am sure that when the review document is published, the hon. Gentleman will be pleasantly surprised by much of it.
	The hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) is my former colleague on the Defence Committee. I think I have been to Salisbury more times in the past few months than I had ever been in my life, and it is a wonderful city. He spoke about the role of the Navy and he is right. When I go to Kandahar or Camp Bastion, there seem to be more submariners there than anywhere else. They are playing a key role. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue of Help for Heroes, which has raised not only money but the profile and support for our troops, which is welcome.
	One of the privileges of my job is to work with armed forces charities, which do a fantastic job. I am not one who thinks that Government can do everything. The charities have an important role. I hope that many people take part in armed forces day on 27 June and give the recognition and support that our troops deserve.
	We heard a fascinating contribution from the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), which showed the tensions in the Conservative party on Europe. I am glad that he and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) are now in the ascendancy again in the party. The hon. Gentleman's speech was well argued. Britain cannot do anything alone. Working with European partners and NATO is important. We need to explain that and fight back against little Englanders such as the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. I wish the hon. Member for North Dorset well in his campaign to educate the more recalcitrant members of the Conservative party about the benefits of the European Community.
	I have already mentioned Project Belvedere, which was also raised by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire. I understand the frustration. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point: a decision needs to be taken so that we can move on and get the necessary involvement.
	In closing, it is always important for us to say a big thank you to our men and women in the armed forces. Whenever I meet them, whether in this country or abroad, I realise that they are young men and women carrying huge burdens of responsibility. In my first contribution to one of these debates, I said that I would like to continue the bipartisan approach in the House, which we certainly had in the Defence Committee, so that we are united in thanking and supporting the members of our armed forces who are doing very difficult jobs on our behalf.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House has considered the matter of defence in the UK.

Gerry Sutcliffe: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) and grateful that he has had the opportunity to discuss the future of pubs. I am also pleased to see the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) and my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) in their places. I believe that they are all members of the all-party beer group and active participants in the beauty of drinking alcohol responsibly.
	This is an important debate, and part of a continuing one. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury mentioned the all-party group's report, to which I want to respond very shortly. He will know that a number of Departments are involved in that response, and I shall co-ordinate it because the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is, I hope, the champion of the licensing industry. He referred to the fact that I enjoy the odd tipplein fact, he knows that I am a keen pub goer and was pleased to support the Proud of Pubs week last year. I pay tribute to Phil, the landlord, Jenny, his wife, and the excellent staff of my local pub, The Glen in Gilstead. I look forward to their excellent service this weekend, when I hope to be there.
	It was good to see so many parliamentarians attending the recent summit arranged in the House by the all-party beer group. It was clear from the excellent turnout ranging across MPs, Ministers, the industry and licensees, and from the quality of the debate, that there was concern about the role of pubs and their importance to our constituents. I and my ministerial colleagues recognise that the pub industry faces difficult times, and we want to address the issues and recommendations raised. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the number of pubs closing is alarming, and that the number of jobs lost and the impact on the economy are serious issues.
	I understand some of the frustrations of the pub sector with what it sees as the cumulative impact of Government measures, but those alone are not the cause of pub closures, as was identified in the excellent debatethe hon. Gentleman raised some of the issues in that regard. We need to consider the role of tied houses and other pub companies, which, through differential pricing and the rents charged, have an impact on landlords. Although I understand the issues in relation to duty and regulation, I will discuss with colleagues in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how we can better understand the sector and provide help.
	The ideas about the role that community pubs can play are excellent. The hon. Gentleman gave examples of what goes on in pubs, whether sport, which is important to me, as the Sports Minister, or other activities. In a rural setting, the pub is important in providing services to the local community. We need to consider those matters.
	Although we take seriously the concerns expressed by the trade about many issues, I am afraid that I disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the smoke-free legislation, which is and should be a benefit to pubs. Given my role before I became an MP, he will not be surprised that workers' rights and public health are close to my heart. I believe that the restrictions introduced were the right way forward. A number of pubs have come up with ingenious solutions, in consultation with local authorities, to enable them to accommodate smokers. The debate will rumble on, but the majority of people backed our efforts.
	The hon. Gentleman was right to talk about responsible and supervised, as opposed to irresponsible, drinking. He will be concerned, as I am and many responsible pub owners are, about alcohol-related crime and disorder, and the need to treat and deal with those who cannot handle drink and commit crime as a result. In many cases, customers are put off going to pubs in town centres, for example, because of the violence that takes place. We want to see the growth of community pubs, but we must acknowledge the wider public intentions of policy to tackle such problems. We want to achieve a balance.
	I will respond to the all-party beer group, whose inquiry was important and dealt with well. I was pleased to give evidence to it, and it came up with a range of recommendations based on detailed consideration of the views of a variety of witnesses. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government will give a response soon, although it would be wrong to say exactly what it will be. Whatever the group feels about the outcome, I want to ensure that the message gets through that Ministers are aware of the current campaign and that the concerns are being heard.
	We have taken some measures, such as the decision to extend the enterprise credit guarantee scheme to all types of smaller pubs, which has helped many tied pubs in particular. In relation to legislation for which I am responsible in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, I have placed orders before the House that would introduce a simpler process for making minor variations to licences, and to increase the stakes and prizes for pub gaming machines. Previously, I have also committed myself to measures to improve other aspects of the licensing regime. We will reflect on the issues raised by the hon. Gentleman today.
	Although the measures that we can take are important, they will not in themselves secure the viability of the trade or ensure that it can see out the economic downturn. How, then, should the pub trade help itself to respond to the challenges? The hon. Gentleman has already offered some solutions, but let me repeat that, in my view, community pubs could have a bright future.
	The issues raised by the hon. Gentleman were reflected in a recent seminar conducted by the Institute for Public Policy Research, which presented all sides of the argument. I was particularly pleased to hear a representative of Alcohol Concern say that the idea of community pubs service was a good one. The debate about alcohol-related health problems has sometimes featured the argument that those who are concerned about them do not understand the issues surrounding pubs, but Alcohol Concern was clearly prepared to support community pubs because they promoted responsible drinking. I consider that to be a major breakthrough. It is possible that pubs could become community businesses. I know that my colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government are discussing the possibility that rate support and other support could be given to pubs.
	Pubs have a great record of reinventing themselves and adjusting to changing demandsby offering better food, as many now do, or by offering more family-friendly premises. Sunday afternoon satellite television is important in securing the football market. I note what was said about that by the hon. Member for Ribble Valley. We must get that right. We speak of the decade of sport and the need to persuade more people to participate in sport. People want to see their role models on television, particularly footballers. We need to speak to representatives of Sky and Setanta, and similar providers, to see what they can do for the smaller pubfor pubs that are not part of a big chain that can afford the fee. I undertake to ensure that we at least talk to them about the possibility. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the wider review of issues related to sport shown on terrestrial television, in which my hon. Friend the Member for Selby is heavily involved, but I think that he made a fair point.
	The editor of the  Morning Advertiser wrote in June last year that some of the current challenges had accelerated the decline in pubs that could not adapt to modern demands. That loss is sad, but we must ensure that we provide an opportunity for the pubs that remain to emerge successfully from the present downturn. I believe that that can be done if we adopt a positive attitude. Yes, there are issues to which the Government should respond with tax-related and other measures, although they should be seen in the round and in the context of all the other spending issues with which Government are faced.
	Given that the all-party beer group is the largest group in Parliament, it is perhaps surprising that only five of us are present this afternoon. However, I am sure that the group's other members will be watching our debate avidly on television, back in their constituencies, to see what I have to say about the outcome for pubs.